The floor in front of the corpses was covered with hay. On the periphery, it was dry and yellow with the gray wood floorboards clearly visible. Below the corpses, the hay was mixed with drying blood. Like little black bergs in a shiny crimson sea, a number of baseball-sized clumps had formed where the hay had continued to soak up the blood leaking from the crucifixion wounds.
Cade averted his eyes and peered down the ladder at Wilson. “You have a full stomach?”
“If I was going to uneat I would have already done so inside the house,” admitted Wilson. “If that woman upstairs and the shit on the plates in the dining room didn’t make me go praying to the porcelain gods, I doubt that whatever you see up there will.”
“You’re good, then?”
Voice full of confidence, Wilson said, “I’m good.”
Without another word on the subject, Cade scaled the final few rungs. He approached the corpses and turned toward the trapdoor, training the tactical light on the opening so he wouldn’t miss seeing the redhead’s expression.
A beat later Wilson emerged from below and swung his gaze to his left. Face twisting in disgust, he whistled low and slow and said, “Fuck meeee.”
“You still good?”
Wilson shot Cade a sidelong glance. He nodded and said, “This is just like the scene in the church. Were these two still alive … er, I mean undead?”
“No,” said Cade, shining the light on the bodies. “This is exactly how I found them.”
“Consider yourself lucky, then. Ol’ Chatter Jaw from the church is still visiting me in my sleep.”
Cade thought: Lucky my ass. I just had to put down my wife. Purging the memory, he swept his arm in a wide arc from the open hayloft door to the vertical seam of light infiltrating the closed doors opposite them. “Does the handwriting look like what you saw in the church?”
Wilson didn’t answer. He was inching closer to the shorter of the two corpses and craning his head sideways to better take in the scene that looked to have been torn from Marquis de Sade’s twisted mind. A pitchfork had been forced into its buttocks from below. Barely an inch of splintered wood from the broken-off handle remained in the rusted, iron head. Thanks to the hollowed-out chest cavity, he could see that all four curved tines had travelled upward and came to rest near parallel to its spine.
Like some kind of sleuth, he craned to get a closer look at the other corpse. Barely visible and hanging phallic-like between its skeletal legs was what could only be a rat’s tail. It was flat and curled like a J. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the rest of the mummified rodent was wedged inside the pelvic cavity.
“Why the eff would someone take the time and go through all the trouble?”
Cade illuminated the writing on the wall to the right of the unlucky duo. He said, “For the meat, first off.”
“And why didn’t they do the same to Ray and Helen?”
He thought: They introduced Ray to the Zs first. Then to encourage him to talk before he turned, threatened to do the same to Helen. But to spare everyone the horrible truth of the matter—infected meat was not edible—he simply said, “Do you like mutton?”
Wilson shook his head. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Cade said, “Never mind. Is the writing familiar to you?”
Wilson took a couple of paces back from the crucified pair. Let his gaze travel the loft walls, pausing for a half-beat each time Cade illuminated the Bible verses scrawled there in what looked to be dried blood.
Voice rising from down below, Duncan said, “What’s the stink from?”
To Wilson’s chagrin, Cade dropped the light to a pile of clothes he’d spotted earlier. He stirred them with a toe. Seeing what looked to him more like smeared pitch than dried blood on the wrinkled flannel and denim, he called down, telling Duncan he had a strong feeling the rendered corpses were those of a woodcutting crew gone missing from Bear River the day before.
Duncan called up the ladder again. “Wrong place, wrong time. That’s too bad.” He paused for a moment then asked, “What’s with the writing you guys were talking about?”
“Come up and see for yourself,” implored Cade.
“If Glenda had a twin and the two of them were up there begging me to frolic with them, I still wouldn’t climb that rickety little ladder.”
Taryn said, “I heard that, Duncan Winters.”
Rubbing his shoulder, Duncan said, “I’ll totally deny it if you tell her. Three against one here.”
Wilson said, “Two.”
Cade added, “You’re on your own on that one, buddy.”
“Give an old fella a break, will ya?” begged Duncan, dragging the chair to the bottom of the support beam. “Can you read me a bedtime story?”
Standing over the trapdoor, Cade peered through the opening and caught Duncan’s eyes.
“Well?”
Cade nodded and disappeared from view.
Chapter 34
Raising his voice so it would carry between levels, Cade said, “All right, Old Man, where do you want me to start?”
“What’s it say on the wall the woodcutters are nailed to?”
“That’s the east wall. There’s a verse attributed to Matthew 6:19.” Cade cleared his throat and went on, “‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.’”
Expecting a response, Cade paused. The tin roof seemed to have warmed a bit. It pinged a couple of times; whether the sound was from the introduction of sun to the oft-stressed panels or errant hailstones, he couldn’t tell.
Not sure what to make of the uneasy silence, Wilson just continued to stare at Cade through the gloom.
“Well?” Cade finally said, eyes downcast as if he could see Duncan through the hay-strewn floor.
“That verse has more to do with Ray and Helen than the dead folks up there. Ray told me he and the missus had a stockpile of supplies and weapons they took from fallen National Guard roadblocks those first days of the outbreak. Said they had MREs and ammo and batteries and weapons. I’d bet the house this is the baddies up north wagging their finger at the Thagons for having all the toys and not sharing.”
Cade said, “I concur.”
Duncan said, “OK. How about the wall facing our allies to the south?”
Wilson had his flashlight out and was already lighting up the far wall. His beam wavering slightly over the second set of doors servicing the loft, he said, “This verse is from Jeremiah 5:17. ‘They will devour your harvest and your food; They will devour your sons and your daughters; They will devour your vines and your fig trees; They will demolish with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.’”
Duncan remained silent.
Cade said, “That can’t be about the Zs. They don’t utilize weapons.”
Duncan said, “That’s a warning directed toward Bear River. Adrian’s saying when the time is right her people are going to march south and take what she perceives to be hers.”
“That’s bullshit,” Cade hissed. “Nothing is hers. And if she wants to fight for it … then a fight she’s going to get.” His ears were hot. The warming tin near his head had nothing to do with it.
“All those white Xs on the doors in Woodruff and Randolph,” said Wilson. “The watcher scribing her name in the church rectory. Lord knows how many are out there. Could be one in every attic for all we know.”
Wearing a knowing look, Cade said nothing.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Duncan.
“Still a bunch of bullshit,” added Wilson, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Duncan said, “I couldn’t agree with you more.” He was standing now and pacing the dirt floor below the opening. “Those fuckers tried to justify their cannibalism by quoting the Bible and scrawling it on the church walls. Now they’re broadcasting their next move. And to add injury to insult, they know to a certain degree where the compound is located.”
Wilson
regarded Cade. Brows knitted, he said, “This bitch is unhinged.”
“You think?” replied Cade, tongue firmly planted in cheek.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Duncan called up. There was a long pause. Finally, voice devoid of emotion, he did just that. “What message is directed toward our compound?”
Cade lit up the wall and read the passage. “Ephesians 4:28. ‘He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he has something to share with one who has need.’”
There was no pause this time. Duncan said, “That is Adrian’s fatwah, so to speak. A declared death sentence on us. And I have no doubt she’ll try to make good on it.”
Cade dropped his chin to his chest. Loose ends. After a couple of beats he said, “Especially now since she knows precisely where to find us.”
Wilson crunched down his boonie hat with one hand. “And where to find her U-Haul trucks filled with supplies.”
Though he’d driven one of said U-Haul trucks, Duncan made no reply to its mention. Instead he moved on, asking, “What’s on the front loft doors?”
“Not a thing,” Cade answered back. The air around his head was warming. And he was growing tired of breathing through his mouth. He said, “I’ve seen enough.”
***
At the bottom of the ladder, Cade turned toward the open doors and called Taryn over.
Duncan pushed off the chair and stood on unsteady legs.
Together they waited for Wilson to finish coming down the ladder.
Once everyone was standing in a ragged semicircle, Cade said, “Adrian, or her people, didn’t need to leave another verse on the north wall.”
Taryn looked a question at Cade.
“Ray and Helen didn’t talk,” he said.
“And you know this, how?” asked Wilson.
Standing between Taryn and Wilson, arms crossed, Duncan wore a knowing look and simply nodded as Cade laid it all out for them. “Because Ray lost his eyes and ears and then, finally, when he didn’t talk—”
“They made her watch as the rotters fed on his arms,” said Wilson, finishing the thought for Cade.
“My guess,” answered Cade. “That’s a fate worse than death. And when Ray still didn’t divulge the compound’s whereabouts, they left him there to turn—”
Duncan interrupted. “And then they made Helen climb to the loft and sit in the chair and watch as they butchered the woodcutters.”
Arms crossed, Taryn asked, “And why didn’t they write a verse on the doors behind her?”
“Because she didn’t talk. And it had nothing to do with her being the strong woman Brook described. It was simply because she had nothing to tell. She didn’t know where the compound is. So her and Ray died for nothing. Thanks to our mole at the compound, Adrian and her people found out where we are anyway.” Finished talking, he ground his teeth and faced north.
Duncan saw Cade go rigid and a thousand-yard stare take over his features. In that moment, it was clear to the Vietnam veteran that his friend was teetering on the precipice of a deep, dark abyss the likes of which few emerged from unscathed—mentally or physically.
Without a word, Cade stalked off toward the house. Ignoring queries from Taryn and Wilson, he mounted the steps, pushed through the door, and continued into the dark guts of the house, his steady, purposeful gait never slowing. He went straight to the bathroom and hauled open the door. Using the Gerber, he sawed through the ropes used to secure the once undead Ray to the commode. Before standing, he pulled Ray’s corpse toward him and adjusted its weight on his shoulder. Once he’d found a good balance point, he rose and backed out of the tiny powder room. Bracketed by the back door and dead refrigerator, he spun a careful quarter-turn and headed for the flat light streaming in the open front door.
On the way back down the main hall, Cade chose a photo off the wall and plucked it from its hook. In the picture, Helen and Ray were standing before the white fence with the north run of the Bear Mountains and a wide expanse of lush, green grass behind them. The pasture was home to a dozen alpacas, the majority of them deep in the background. However, one cheeky young specimen was cutting into the photo, its head taking up space near Helen’s ear. The couple wore toothy grins. From that brief glimpse Cade got as he selected the photo from the half-dozen others on the wall, he was sure at that moment in history no two people on Earth had been happier.
Without pausing to assess how they were hung, he yanked the set of curtains from the dining room window as he passed on by.
At the front door, he angled his shoulders a few degrees right and squeezed through the opening designed for an average-sized person at the turn of the century. Careful to not bang Ray’s head on the jamb, he spun a one-eighty and closed the door behind him.
At the truck, under three pairs of watchful eyes, he laid the drapes out on the gravel and very carefully placed Ray Thagon lengthwise on them.
Mute since making the decision he was acting upon, Cade placed the photo on Ray’s chest and crossed the corpse’s arms across it. He about-faced and trudged from the truck to the barn where he knelt and scooped Helen up in his arms. Boot prints glistening in the rapidly melting hail, he retraced his steps to the truck and gently laid Helen’s corpse beside her husband’s.
There on the splayed-out burgundy fabric the pale corpses looked nothing like the couple in the photo. Secure in the thought the two of them were together again in a better place, Cade blanketed them both with the drapes and said a silent prayer.
Rubbing a knot out of his shoulder, Cade looked a question at Wilson and Taryn.
Message received.
***
Three minutes later—with Wilson and Taryn’s help—the snowmobile was moved to one side of the truck’s bed and the shrouded corpses occupied the narrow space beside it.
“Forty-five minutes,” were the first words Cade had uttered since leaving the barn to go back in the house. He remained silent even as he backed the F-650 down the feeder road. Like a ship at sea, the big Ford listed and shimmied as it negotiated the rutted road.
Though the going down the road was trickier in reverse, they made it to the state route without pitching man or machine from the bed.
As Cade wheeled across both lanes, parting a throng of Zs in the process, he asked Wilson to look at their load and tell him what he saw.
Wilson threw an arm over his seat back and lifted his butt off the seat. Craning hard, he let his gaze roam the contents of the crowded bed.
The keening noise of fingernails raking the truck’s flanks reverberated throughout the cab.
Sitting down hard, Wilson met Cade’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Ray and Helen are still snug as—”
A glare from Cade cut the inappropriate comment off at the knees. He said, “Just the facts.”
A sheepish look on his face, Wilson went on. “The Thagons haven’t moved from where we put them. The snowmobile shifted toward the open gate a bit.”
“What’s a bit?”
“Half a foot.”
Cade slipped the shifter to Park. “Do we have to get out and adjust the load?”
Wilson began to speak, but was cut off for a second time by Duncan.
Looking at Cade, Duncan said, “Time’s a wastin’.”
Ignoring the faces pressing against his window, Cade calmly plucked the Motorola from a pocket and thumbed the Talk button. “Eden, Cade here.” He crossed his arms on the wheel and dropped his forehead, resting it on his knuckles as he waited for the response. Which came three seconds later.
“This is Tran,” came the familiar sing-song voice.
Cade brought Tran up to speed. He left nothing out. Not a single gory detail. He wanted everyone there to be filled in, too. Verbatim, he stressed. Because he wanted everyone there to be as pissed-off as he was about the new atrocities that amounted to little more than a cherry on the sundae of death and destruction Adrian and her followers had already wrought on anybody unfortun
ate enough to have come into contact with them. Finished describing the way the Thagons’ bodies had been desecrated, he passed on instructions for Lev and Jamie. The two were to arm up and rush to Woodruff in the Raptor.
“What if they come across Bridgett along the way?” asked Tran.
Cade lowered his head again and tapped out a cadence on the steering wheel.
“She’s not going to let them see her,” said Duncan. “She’ll go to ground the second she hears that growling engine.”
Cade lifted his head and met Taryn’s gaze in the rearview. “That’s what I’m counting on. And if she does what any good soldier would do, the rest should fall into place nicely.” He nudged the transmission to Drive. Then, with the hollow bangs of palms slapping sheet metal seeing them off, he motored north toward Woodruff and the rendezvous he knew was sure to be a bloody affair.
Chapter 35
At the 39/16 junction, Cade pulled the F-650 hard to the side of the road opposite the tipped-over school bus. He took the Glock from the seat beside him and dumped the magazine. He racked the slide and let the live 9mm round fall into his lap.
“Chamber’s empty,” he said, handing the suppressed weapon and fresh mag over the seatback to Wilson.
Wilson took the Glock and, much to Cade’s surprise, pulled the slide back an inch to check for himself. “It certainly is,” he reported back.
“Quiet and fast,” Cade said over his shoulder.
Wilson seated the magazine and cycled a round into the chamber. “We got this,” he declared as he scooted across the seat and followed Taryn out the rear passenger-side door.
“Be careful,” Duncan said over his shoulder half a beat before the door thunked shut behind his head. He looked to Cade, one brow cocked. “Think it registered?”
“Hope not,” admitted Cade. “Careful is for building scale airplane models and working on pocket watches.”
“Wilson was scared,” Duncan added, his tone betraying a trace of worry.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 19