Cade slowed the surge with a boot to the chest of rotter number two. While the portly female was pin-balling backwards into the Z behind her, Cade killed her with a roundhouse knife strike to the temple. As number two smacked pavement he backed away in a crouch, muscles coiled and mind going a mile a minute picking out targets and assigning them a number in his order of attack.
Moving left, he crossed the midpoint of Center Street, dragging the lurching crowd with him clockwise. Stopping in the eastbound lane, he grabbed the next Z by the throat and introduced one of its milky eyes to the Gerber’s honed point.
Four down, nine to go.
“For Desantos,” he said, palming an elderly Z’s wispy-hair-covered head and propelling it to the road with force sufficient to open its skull like an egg.
Resisting the urge to stomp its leaking brains to mush, he pivoted left again, crabbed in that direction, and attacked the rear of the group from an oblique angle. To him, as time continued to slow, the temples on the four closest monsters working hard to turn and face him appeared as large as dinner plates. One, two, three, four he counted mentally as he struck out with the black steel, scrambling brains and dropping the quartet one by one in quick succession.
Upstairs in Back In The Saddle Duncan was just making the landing. By the time he had cleared the upstairs rooms, approached a south-facing window, and was looking down on the road below, Cade was surrounded by truly dead rotters and being pursued by only two of the original group. His jaw dropped when he saw Cade turn his back on the flesh-eaters and begin to walk slowly toward the Chevy. He banged on the glass and let out some choice expletives, all directed at Cade and earned from the stupidity on display as the camo-clad man placed his bloody dagger on the rig’s hood and, inexplicably, turned back to face the rotters with his fists clenched and held up defensively before his rage-twisted face.
“They’re not gonna punch you, Cade. One bite is all it takes,” said Duncan, the words echoing off the pitched ceiling and heard only by the twice-dead corpses of a hanged woman and what appeared to be her asphyxiated child.
A split-second glance south told Duncan that Taryn had already parked the Ford out of sight behind the school bus. And catching his eye at the tail end of the brief glance was a flash of white as the Raptor came out of the last curve on 39 vectoring toward its intersection with 16. As the rig began to slow, he cast his eyes on the street below the window and saw that Cade had both remaining rotters by the neck and, like some kind of pissed-off bouncer who’d tired of taking drunken lip, was bashing their skulls together repeatedly. Then, displaying strength Duncan didn’t know Cade possessed, the young man lifted the corpses off their feet and threw them a yard or two in the direction of the far curb. Next, as the corpses struggled to right themselves, Cade grabbed them both by the meager amounts of hair left on their pallid skulls and dragged them the rest of the way to the curb where, one at a time, he positioned their pistoning maws on the sharp cement edge and stomped down hard. The result: splintered teeth, visible against the black asphalt, shot out in all directions. Like dice on a craps table the yellowed incisors and molars bounced off the curb wall and came to rest in a random pattern around the Zs’ still writhing forms. The intense downward pressure transferred through the Danner’s soles broke the creatures’ jaws before seeing them ripped free—tendon and muscle still attached—by the follow-on outward snap of the man’s hip.
Thankfully the morbid sounds from the coup de grâce skull stomping was mostly insulated from his ears by the window glass. The sight, unfortunately, was not. Both creatures’ will to rise ceased and their bodies went slack as their collapsed skulls vomited gray chunks of meninges and what little viscous fluids remained in the crushed brain pans.
The word abyss again sprang to mind as Duncan watched his friend deliver a solid kick to the head of one of the corpses. A spritz of detritus rose and spattered to the roadway. Thankfully, thought Duncan, I wasn’t exposed to that sound, either.
Both hands on the glass, Duncan watched his friend stalk to the Chevy and collect his blade. After a brief pause to surveil all points of the compass from the corner of Main and Center, the man disappeared around front of Back In The Saddle.
Chapter 39
Upstairs in the rear of the two-story house turned commercial property, Duncan heard the crack of wood from the front door being kicked in. The noise of the brass knob punching a hole in drywall downstairs was not lost on him either.
“Cade, close the door behind you,” he called out ahead of a chuckle. Hoping the man had left a majority of his rage outside, he made his way to the top of the stairs to give the younger man a proper reception.
The sound of a door being forced shut and some general scuffing noises preceded the clomping of boots on decades-old wooden treads.
“Why’d you destroy the front door?” asked Duncan the second Cade reached the middle landing.
Pausing mid-run, Cade fixed his gaze on Duncan. “It was locked and I didn’t want to walk around back is the smart ass answer I’d expect from you. Truth is, if you insist on this being the place you’re going to be when Iris’s friends show up, you will need the extra few seconds you’re going to save by not having to work the lock and throw a deadbolt. Especially hard to do in a hurry with one of your old buzzard wings giving you problems. I left a chair under the knob. You need to egress that way, just kick it aside and you’re in business.” He raised a brow and regarded the Saiga and suppressed M4 resting against the wall.
Following Cade’s gaze, Duncan said sharply, “I can shoot just fine with my ‘old buzzard wing giving me problems’. Doesn’t matter. If Bridgett’s—”
“Iris,” interrupted Cade.
“Whatever,” said Duncan. “If her friends get past us, all is pretty much lost anyway.”
“You’re willing to martyr yourself?” said Cade, a hint of incredulity in his tone. “Don’t you think it’s a better proposition to disengage if you have to? Maybe live to fight another day? To see Glenda again?”
Duncan removed his Stetson. Running a hand through his thinning hair, he said, “Look what my strategic withdrawal got us at Bear Lake.”
“That was empathy’s doing.”
Shaking his head, Duncan countered vehemently, “No! I truly wanted that bitch to get eaten. Swallow some of her own medicine, so to speak.”
“And the people you let go? They can’t all have been prisoners destined to grace the dinner table.”
“No telling how many bodies and guns they had,” said Duncan sharply. “And no telling where they were going, either. Could have had back-up real close. And I didn’t exactly have the army I was expecting.” Hell, he thought, bitterly. I didn’t even have you.
“Exactly,” said Cade. He walked to the south-facing window. “You just proved my point. If the Bear Lake force proves to be more than the six of us can handle, you’re going to need to get out of here real quick. You also have to consider another what if—”
“And that is?” Duncan interrupted.
“What if a large herd of Zs breaks from Bear River and start coming this way? If that happens … by the time we see them coming, we’re going to have only a couple of minutes to get you and get to 39. Even then we risk being seen by the Zs. And if they do see us and take chase, we can all kiss Eden goodbye.”
“All but the latter are chances I’m willing to take if it gets me the results I want.”
“And those are?”
“Same as you: kill them all.”
“We can do it here. We can do it there.” Cade shook his head, “Wherever we do engage them it has to be on our terms.”
“I already climbed those stairs,” retorted Duncan. “I’m staying until I ain’t.”
Cade said, “A last stand?”
“Won’t come to that.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Simultaneously, from deep inside cargo pockets, both of the men’s two-way radios vibrated to life and began emitting muted electronic trills. A bea
t later Taryn was on the radio and announcing Lev and Jamie’s arrival.
“You picking up, or me?”
Cade fished out his radio. Thumbed the Talk button and replied, “Have them snug their truck in next to yours. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Cade put the radio away and noticed Duncan staring at him.
“What?” he said, defensively.
“You’re not going to try and stop me?”
Cade looked over at the corpses. They were locked in a post mortem embrace. No way they ended up that way on their own. Someone had to have posed them like that, he conceded to himself. Someone showing great empathy for the mom and daughter relationship they likely shared when they walked among the living. After a prolonged moment of silence, he regarded Duncan with eyes wet with emotion. “Trying to impose my will didn’t work on Brook. Hell, it hardly has any effect on Raven these days. No way anything I’m going to say is going to steer you away from the iceberg you’re steaming toward.”
“That’s some heavy shit, Delta.”
Cade said nothing.
Duncan swiped at his eyes. “Help me move this dresser to the window.”
Together they moved the chest-high item to the window nearest the southeast corner of the room. Duncan stood up, rubbing his back. He opened the curtains wide and peered below. He saw that Cade had laid the dead bodies across Center from the left rear corner of the Chevy all the way to the far curb. Five of them were positioned toes to head—or what remained of the latter. The rest were stacked clumsily atop the first row to create a knee-high flesh and bone speed bump of sorts.
“Why the corpse roadblock?”
“First thing any person does when they see a human body on the road is hit the brakes to slow down.”
Duncan nodded. “Guess so.” He gestured to the Chevy. “And the two you put in the truck?”
“Hoping to provide a momentary diversion. Maybe even get—”
“—the dirtbags to dismount,” drawled Duncan, the words coming slow and deliberate. He removed his Stetson and set it atop the dresser where it would be seen easily by anyone looking up.
“Diversion,” said Cade, nodding. “What’s the towel and foam cube for?”
“You’ll see. Help me move the desk from the room down the hall in here.”
Cade followed Duncan through the doorway and padded down the hall after him. “Let me check something first,” he said, fishing out the radio and continuing past the room on the right containing the low table and chairs. At the end of the long hall there was a west-facing window. He parted the curtains and spotted Wilson at once. Which wasn’t a problem from this angle. The young man was set up behind a three by three by two cube fashioned from some kind of dull metal—an air conditioner unit, he presumed. Thumbing the radio to life, he said, “Good position, Wilson. Just stay still and out of sight until the cue.”
Thirty yards to the west, the redhead slowly panned his head from due north to due east and, to show he copied the message, flashed a thumbs-up.
Satisfied, Cade made his way to the room where Duncan was waiting. Taking matters into his own hands, he turned the table on its side and dragged it to the south-facing room containing the corpses.
Duncan followed silently, a chair with chrome legs and wrapped in red vinyl in tow.
“This,” said Duncan, putting the foam cube and towel atop the table, “is to be used as a rest for that rifle of yours. The shotgun, I’ll only use as a last resort.”
Cade finished pushing the table up against the window farthest from the door and adjusted it to be able to accept the chair facing the window. “Two guns are better than one,” he said, placing the M4 on the table with the other items.
“Three,” quipped Duncan, patting the Colt model 1911 hanging low in its drop leg holster.
Cade looked at his Suunto. “Gotta go,” he said. “Less than twenty minutes.”
Again Duncan looked at his bare wrist.
Steeling himself against what he was about to do, Cade crossed the room and knelt next to the mother and child. Gently, he lifted the dead woman’s right arm away from the incredibly small corpse it was clutching. Thanking her under his breath, he worked the band on the watch she had worn through all phases of her journey to this final resting place. Where the skin on a woman’s wrist was usually most supple, hers was cool and leather-like to the touch. He removed the digital watch and examined its rugged plastic case. It was large for a woman’s watch, but small in his hand. It had also taken some abuse. It was scuffed on the bezel and crystal, but still displayed the accurate time and date.
“Take this,” he said, tossing the watch across the mostly empty room. “It’s only twenty seconds ahead of mine.”
Like an outfielder saving a homerun at the wall, Duncan caught the watch above his head left-handed. “Just my size,” he quipped, turning it over and inspecting the face. “Thanks, Santa. Now you better get.”
Chapter 40
Roughly twenty miles west of Woodruff by crow Glenda was wheeling the Eden group’s lone Humvee into the first leg of what was going to prove to be a very sloppy K-turn. She was dressed for the mission: BDUs from the eighties in the dark woodland pattern. Combat boots that fit her just right. On her head was a boonie hat in woodland she had found hanging from the bedpost in Duncan’s quarters.
In the passenger seat next to her, Seth was holding on tight. One hand was clamped to the roof while the other steadied an AR-style rifle muzzle down between his legs. His attire was more REI Co-Op than U.S. Army. Jacket and pants were a lighter shade of brown than his dark leather Timberland boots. All were supposedly waterproof and lined with shiny material purported to possess a magical wind-stopping technology. Great as a sales pitch. Not so great in a vehicle with a drafty gun turret up top and no heater to speak of.
Glenda wore a constant grimace put there by the gnash and snap of bones breaking under the tall off-road tires as the former Utah National Guard rig crawled over a trio of splayed-out corpses.
The recent kills were leaking thin runners of blood onto the damp roadway. Left where they had fallen, it was obvious without voicing it in the jostling Humvee that these former Americans were dispatched earlier in the morning by Cade and Raven—likely the latter, though, because it was common knowledge among the older Eden group members that the recently widowed dad was hell bent on infusing his daughter with the skill sets necessary to survive the apocalypse should he suffer the same fate as their beloved Brook.
As Glenda straightened the wheel and prepared to reverse, the hollow pop of a human skull losing out to tons of steel and Kevlar sounded inside the cabin.
“I’ll never get used to that sound,” said Seth grimly, lips pressed into a white line.
“Nor should you,” she said soberly. “Though they look like horrors from a movie, they were our neighbors and loved ones.” Before the comment had finished crossing her lips, she was back in her home, in the upstairs bedroom with the deck overlooking a burned-out Huntsville and the expansive reservoir west of the small town glittering like fool’s gold in her mind’s eye. For a split second between thoughts she was elbows deep into her husband’s rib cage and about to do something (even by horror flick standards) that had been wholly unthinkable before that last Saturday in July when her world was turned on its ear and she lost all communication with both of her sons. Now, a little more than three months removed from Omega’s rapid sweep up the valley from Ogden, Salt Lake and points beyond, she was widowed and knew for certain her youngest, Oliver, had left this earth. Her other boy, Pete, and his family, as far as she knew, were gone forever too.
Seeing the faraway look in Glenda’s eyes, Seth said, “I’ll just picture a healthy-sized watermelon under the tires next time I hear that.”
“Watermelon,” said Glenda, the word coming out slow and syrupy, as if it were saliva-coated. “What I wouldn’t—”
Sensing the woman was back among the living, Seth said, “Stop here.” He was looking at the wall
of fallen timbers to his right. The trees were bowing down in the middle. Nubs of broken branches jutted out at him. Some of the sharp spikes protruding from the trees comprising the first couple of layers wore a coating of glossy detritus from where mindless automatons in search of imagined prey beyond Daymon’s makeshift barrier had impaled themselves. “I want to take a look. Just to make sure Bridgett’s friends didn’t pull some kind of forest-service-road-end-around and get stuck over there.”
“Doubtful,” said Glenda. She applied the brakes anyway. “Knock yourself out.”
Seth stepped from the passenger seat, looped around back and then climbed up into the cramped, armored cupola with the .50 caliber Browning heavy machine gun. He reached his hand toward Glenda and was rewarded with the weighty feel of a pair of Bushnell binoculars. Without saying a word, he looped the strap over his head and pulled his lengthening beard aside so that he could bring the eyecups to his eyes. He remained silent and standing straight in the open top turret for nearly a full minute.
“Any cannibals waiting on the bridge and ready to storm over this, this …” She went quiet for a tick, then continued, “environmentalist’s worst nightmare?”
“Nope,” he conceded dryly. “All we have over yonder are about thirty or so of our ‘fellow former Americans.’”
Craning and looking up in order to make eye contact, Glenda asked, “What are they doing?”
“Dry humping the snowplow,” he said. “There’s also a few of them snagged on the barrier. They’re just marching in place. No threat whatsoever.”
A stiff wind rolled over the barrier from the west, bringing with it the hair-raising calls of the dead and their sickly-sweet odor. The upthrust branches on the barrier rustled and the tall pines crowding the road began to sway.
“If Bridgett’s people came from Huntsville and then turned around on that side,” Glenda called over the diminishing gale, “the rotters wouldn’t still be there. They would have followed the food.”
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 22