Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss

by Chesser, Shawn

  Nothing was out of place.

  Praying that the front door was marked with a big white X and the home wasn’t booby trapped with dead things, he closed the compromised door one-handed and leveled his rifle at the nearby doorway.

  After what seemed like an eternity standing there with his heart hammering in his chest, Lev ticked off in his mind the knowledge gained from what was in reality only a two-second pause. First thing that struck him was that the smell of death wasn’t riding the still air inside the tiny house. Nor was there present the sound of shuffling feet or telltale moans and rasps of a hungry rotter wanting to make a meal out of him.

  Convinced by two of his five senses that he was likely alone in the house, he set off to confirm the hunch visually.

  A quick sweep of the four remaining rooms told him the house was indeed empty. Everything had been stripped from the place save for the horizontal blinds, a dirty plunger, and a knee-high mound of summer clothes sized for a very small man.

  Cade’s voice emanated from the radio in Lev’s pocket at the very moment he was parting the blinds covering the living room window. He scanned the yard and street and listened as Cade confirmed that he and Jamie were in position.

  Letting his gaze wander Center Street left to right, Lev thought: Good field of fire?

  Check.

  Hearing Cade’s request for a SITREP, he thumbed the Talk button. “Copy that,” he said. “I’m inside and all alone.”

  When the channel was clear, Taryn came on and issued her report.

  While Lev listened to Taryn state that their six was clear save for the dozen or so dead things homing in on her from the south, he was walking to each window, parting the blinds, and looking out over the surrounding yard.

  Cade and Duncan dominated the channel next, going at each other as they discussed firing angles and where each group was located in relation to the intersection. When the conversation concluded with Duncan’s two-word challenge directed at the Bear Lake cannibals, Lev was back in the front room, opening sliding windows and punching out the screens fronting them.

  Recollecting the dozens of human corpses he had stumbled upon in the basement of one particular house at the Bear Lake compound——some of them in the process of being bled and others already rendered of their flesh—Lev narrowed his eyes and nodded agreeably.

  Bring it, indeed.

  Chapter 43

  The far-off rumble of a hard-working engine hit Cade and Jamie’s ears first. Then came the thrum of tires on blacktop—a high-pitched bees-in-a-hive-like buzz that spoke of something other than the off-the-lot pickups and moving vehicles he had been told were the chosen modes of transportation of the Bear Lake cannibals.

  Cade swung his rifle left by a few degrees and peered through the scope. At once the stripe of blacktop and acres of fields and barbed wire fence crowding it on both flanks loomed large in the optics. As the sounds grew nearer he seemed to feel the vibration in his gut. Impossible due to the distance, so he chalked it up to the nervous anticipation he always felt before going into battle. Some called it combat tingle. Others simply a case of the nerves. He knew it as an old and constant friend. One that was always with him through armed conflict beginning to end. And taking to heart advice given to him long ago by his late friend and mentor Mike Desantos, the day he stopped experiencing the anticipatory pre-contact jitters would be the day he had to seriously consider hanging up his spurs.

  “They’re coming over the rise,” said Jamie. She was sitting cross-legged with her face glued to the Steiners and her elbows braced on her knees.

  “I see them. Three pickups, two passenger cars, and an SUV.”

  The first two pickups were not stock. They rolled on massive monster-truck-style wheels and sat high on long-travel suspensions. The rig in the lead had a snowplow-like blade mounted up front. It had been constructed from a pair of rust-streaked four-by-three sheets of plate metal. A thick vertical weld line was evident where the pieces came together in the middle. The opposing plates were perpendicular to the road and swept back at a shallow angle. That they were both left flat instead of made to be concave like a plow’s blade suggested to Cade that these were intended to split and repel herds of Zs at low to medium speed.

  A female driver and passenger rode up front in both of the trucks. In each of the high off the road beds sat a pair of men brandishing AR-style rifles.

  The silver Toyota pickup Cade had seen earlier by the compound was third in driving order. Though he wasn’t a hundred percent certain, he figured the two women in the cab were the ones he and Raven had spied on at Daymon’s roadblock.

  The next two cars behind the trucks were late model Dodge Challengers, their neon-green paint strikingly similar to that of Daymon’s prized Scout, Lu Lu.

  A quick headcount told him the Challengers held four bodies each—men and women—with no rhyme or reason as to how seating order was doled out. Definitely no boy-girl-boy thing happening here. The lead Challenger carried three women and a man. The women were dressed in black and wore their hair short. The man was bearded and sported a safety-orange trucker’s hat. The black barrel of a shotgun protruded through his open passenger window.

  The second vehicle was a 50/50 affair. The driver and passenger were women, full in the face, their hair shorn close to the skull. The passengers were men. Their tattooed arms were thrown over the front seatbacks and both wore expressions full of bored indifference.

  The gun-metal gray Dodge Durango bringing up the rear was driven by a woman whose hair was a shade of platinum one notch south of a sun going supernova. She was pale in the face and, though the dark clouds hadn’t broken fully, wore a pair of sunglasses with lenses that could have been honed from obsidian. Next to her sat a man with a tree trunk for a neck and hands like shovel blades. He wasn’t holding a weapon that Cade could see. With mitts like that, he didn’t need one. Hulk Smash came to mind as the man filling up the front seat clasped those hands and grinned, showing off a mouthful of stainless-steel-capped teeth. If there were passengers—which Cade didn’t doubt for a second—he couldn’t see them.

  Cade thumbed the radio on and relayed the information he’d gleaned from glassing the six-vehicle convoy.

  Without slowing, the lifted pickups entered Woodruff, passed by the cross street leading up to the church, and then forged ahead on Main Street for a couple of blocks. A half-dozen car lengths north of the roadblock the lead truck slowed and the bee-like noise from its tires subsided to a soft hiss.

  “I think they’re going to stop short,” said Jamie, quickly trading the Steiners for her scoped rifle.

  “As expected,” whispered Cade. “Be lazy, dirtbags. Come on… be lazy.”

  No sooner had Cade begun to chant the words of encouragement than the whole procession lurched to a halt a few yards shy the Cadillac.

  The heavily tattooed men riding in the back of the trucks braced themselves, but still rocked back and forth as the rigs swayed before coming to a full stop. A beat later, surprising Cade a bit, the men were taking a knee and aiming their rifles out their respective sides. A quick look at the twenty-something in the rear of the lead truck revealed roving eyes and decent control of his weapon: muzzle pointed at the body shop lot and trigger finger braced alongside the trigger guard. Put together, these brief observations told Cade their training was above average.

  Well-tuned V8 engines rumbled as discussion ensued and some kind of decision was being made by those in charge. Then, all at once, the vehicles shuddered as transmissions were thrown into reverse. The Durango started rolling backwards and continued to do so until it was at the intersection two blocks north of Center and Main.

  The other vehicles followed suit until the truck with the plow had cleared the street one block north of Center and ground to a halt. In a reversal of the previous maneuver, the six-vehicle procession negotiated the left turn and one by one disappeared from view, moving eastbound on a street whose name Cade hadn’t taken the time to learn.

>   Atop the body shop Wilson had fought the overwhelming urge to steal a peek over the edge by replaying images of the many human bodies he’d seen destroyed by rifles like the ones Cade was describing. For a long minute he had stayed out of sight with only the air conditioner unit between him and the gun-wielding cannibals.

  Wilson used Cade’s play by play and the sounds of the engines revving to formulate a mental image of what was happening so close to his position. Still, though curiosity was digging its claws ever deeper into him, he didn’t budge from cover until the whole herky-jerky affair of the convoy backing up and rerouting east was completed. Only when Cade indicated over the radio that the rear vehicle was lost from sight did he crawl on his stomach to his preordained spot at the right front corner of the rooftop where his only cover would be the foot-tall parapet.

  He replayed the instructions in his head: If things go sideways, Cade had said. Keep low and move to better cover. Sound tactical advice easier said than done once the bullets start flying. However, having already witnessed the man wield the sniper rifle of his with great precision against bad guys in vehicles moving at high rates of speed, Wilson took great comfort in knowing that these targets would likely be stationary when the highly trained shooter engaged them.

  And if he did have to run for it, there was always Cade’s reassuring promise that should anyone give chase he would see to it that, in his words, ‘A lethal dose of lead poisoning will befall them.’

  Smiling inwardly at Cade’s growled statement, Wilson made himself as small a target as possible and waited for the fireworks to start.

  Chapter 44

  Upstairs in the rehab place Duncan was standing beside the south-facing window with his back to the wall. He was holding the borrowed M4 at his side with his left hand and pulling the blinds away from the window with the other. Peering one-eyed into the sliver of daylight he witnessed the noisy convoy round the gravel lot behind the business and nose west onto Center. Through the gap, he saw all three pickups and the two cars Cade had described. The gray SUV, however, was nowhere to be seen. Which was troubling in and of itself. Because the coin he had flipped in his head as to whether the rehab place was going to receive another round of scrutiny from the Bear Lake cannibals came up Heads. His assumption was that the group were novices at this survival thing and whoever showed for the preplanned meeting would become preoccupied with the vehicles and dead bodies in their way and not give Back In The Saddle another round of scrutiny. It was beginning to look as if his choice of Heads prior to the flip, he thought glumly, was about to be proven a losing proposition.

  “There you go gambling again, Old Man,” he muttered. “At least it’s only your waste of a life this time.”

  For reasons unknown, the iconic black and white photo of Black Panther leader Malcolm X brandishing a rifle and peering out a window in a similar last stand kind of pose popped into Duncan’s head. Then, inexplicably, as he wondered if that shot had been staged for the photographer, he let the blinds go, reached into an inside pocket, and caressed the sealed half-pint of rotgut bourbon he’d lifted from the watcher.

  Thankfully, the craving was gone as quickly as it had reared its ugly head. And as the cunning, baffling, and powerful urge to do some forgettin’ slinked away to whatever dark corner of his mind it called home, he was gut-punched by the stark reality that there was nothing staged about the situation he had so willingly gotten himself into. Nope, this was as real as a heart attack and was about to end with the same result unless he adopted the attitude the Malcolm X photo was supposed to evoke. No sooner had the words by any means necessary entered his train of thought than a loud bang and the screech of splintering wood from downstairs shook him to the core.

  It was nothing like the noise Cade had made breaching the front door earlier. That would be akin to comparing a mouse fart to a shotgun blast. This noise gave the latter a run for its money and definitely signaled the demise of the locked door leading to the parking lot out back. Which meant whoever was responsible for the dramatic entry had maybe twenty stairs to climb and less than five feet of hallway to traverse before they were right outside his door.

  Aware that his worst-case scenario was coming to fruition, Duncan release the blind and slipped the radio from his pocket.

  Backing away from the window, he thumbed the radio alive. Words coming rapid-fire, he spoke in a near whisper, filling the others in on his situation. Finished, he dialed the volume down and put the radio away.

  Standing in the center of the room, eyes searching desperately for somewhere to hide, he heard the heavy footfalls from the person or persons negotiating the stairway echoing in the hall just outside the door.

  “What now, genius?” he tasked himself as it dawned on him that the lone closet and dresser drawers were his only options for concealment. He didn’t even approach the former. One glance told him it was way too shallow to cram his old carcass into with any chance of getting the door closed behind him. The latter, though it had been built at a time when hardwood and dovetail joinery trumped fiberboard and staples and would likely absorb a few rounds, was a no go because moving it to the window in the first place had taken the combined efforts of both he and Cade.

  Behind the door it would have to be.

  He pressed his back to the wall on the hinge side and shifted his slung M4 to his left side. In the next beat the footfalls were sounding right outside the door and his Colt was in his hand.

  Fully aware that he would be kissing his hearing and the element of surprise goodbye by going with the semiauto hand cannon, he thumbed back the hammer, drew in a deep breath, and lowered his gaze to the doorknob.

  Cade was training the MSR on the driver in the truck fitted with the makeshift plow when his Motorola transmitted Duncan’s whispered warning. Knowing words alone couldn’t save the man from his own decision at this point, Cade scooped up the radio and paused for a couple of seconds.

  “That man is hardheaded,” said Jamie, shooting a questioning look Cade’s way.

  “Tell me about,” he replied, drawing the Motorola to his mouth. “Lord knows I tried to talk him into staying with Wilson.” After a slow wag of his head, Cade dropped his chin to his chest. A half-beat later he was back on the open channel instructing Lev to open fire if anything he saw or heard led him to believe Duncan had been compromised.

  After receiving an affirmative from Lev, Cade delivered modified instructions to Wilson. Finished with the updates, he put his eye back behind the scope, settled the crosshairs on the driver, and drew up most of the trigger pull.

  Just as Cade was about to let fly the first round and spring the ambush prematurely, the second radio that once belonged to the watcher at the Thagons’ home came to life with a squelch of white noise. Next, a voice, strained and hoarse but definitely possessing a feminine quality, emanated from the speaker.

  Behind the wheel of the lead truck the driver went rigid. In the next beat, she was elbowing open her door and stepping down to the road.

  Though Cade couldn’t initially attribute the voice coming from the watcher’s radio as that of their escaped mole, the proof came when the dismount put a radio of her own to her mouth and, lips moving in sync with the words broadcast by the radio near Cade’s elbow, answered by saying, “Iris, is that you?”

  While keeping one ear cocked for anything sounding remotely like a suppressed gunshot coming from the direction of the rehab place, Cade kept the dismount in his crosshairs and listened to the woman named Iris lament the fact that she was injured badly and nowhere near the rendezvous point.

  Nothing happened for a few long seconds as the dismount walked and harangued Iris for more details—none of which included mileposts or signs or distinguishing landmarks. “Forest” and “hills” and “purged” is all Cade caught as he watched the dismount kneel and inspect his assembled pile of corpses.

  Abruptly, the dismount ended the conversation without making any promises. And just as unexpectedly the female passenger of the lea
d truck was on the road and approaching the dismount waving a black brick-sized item sporting a foot-long whip-antenna.

  Already two truck-lengths ahead of the convoy and craning to see inside the white pickup, the dismount turned and accepted what Cade took to be a long-range radio. Whip antenna still bobbing beside her head, the dismount did two things. First, her mouth moved as she seemed to issue instructions to her short-haired lookalike. Then she was speaking into the item, her words relayed clearly through the speaker of the long-range radio Cade had found in the attic.

  The call lasted ten seconds.

  During the first three Cade and Jamie learned that there were people up north expecting the dismount and her group to find the U-Haul trucks stolen from them or die trying.

  I’ll be more than happy to oblige, thought Cade as he watched the passenger hustle past the plow truck to deliver the head honcho’s orders to the other cannibals.

  The middle three seconds consisted of the disembodied voice telling the head honcho that the southernmost watcher wasn’t answering.

  Ain’t that a shame, thought Cade, drawing back a bit from the scope and blinking to keep his eye moist. In doing so, in his side vision, he caught Jamie looking his way.

  “Soon,” he said. “Real soon.”

  The final three-second snippet of conversation consisted of the disembodied voice telling the dismount that to return empty-handed would require the entire party be sacrificed to the purged and mean a three-day stint in the stocks for her own failure.

  “Bingo,” said Cade. “Proof of life.”

  “Adrian,” noted Jamie.

  Cade said nothing to that.

  With his stubborn friend dominating his thoughts, Cade said a quick prayer and drew in a breath. Crosshairs settled firmly between the dismount’s shoulder blades, he exhaled slowly and caressed the trigger between beats of his heart.