“Gotta find the woman, first,” grumbled Gregory. He looked to the north and began to rub his shoulder vigorously.
Dregan shrugged off the sword and presented it to Gregory. “Hold this for me while I’m away.”
Nearly fumbling the sword, Gregory said, “No you don’t, Dad.” Eyes filling with tears, he went on, “Peter needs you to come back. I … need you to come back. Even if you have only days to live … come back to us. Please.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
“Where is my Thor boy anyway?”
“Waiting for you at the north gate.”
The elder Dregan took a step forward, wrapped Gregory in a bear hug, and held him in it for a few seconds. Releasing his grip, he took a step back and looked his boy up and down.
“What?” asked Gregory, his eyes glassy and red.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m sore on my right side.”
Dregan shot him a questioning look.
“The pain starts where I was bitten.” He turned to his right and pulled his collar aside, revealing a mass of hardening tissue roughly the circumference of a tennis ball.
“And?”
“And it radiates down my arm and ribcage. Ebbs and spikes with my pulse, too.”
“After you alert Brook …” Realizing the slip, Dregan looked away for a second, shaking his head. “After you alert Duncan of my impending success, be sure to talk to the nurse.”
“Glenda is her name. I’ll see what she has to say.”
“Don’t sugarcoat things,” growled Dregan.
“I won’t,” promised Gregory. He fixed his gaze square on his dad. “Will you do me a favor?”
Dregan put a hand up to ward off the headlamp beam. “What is it?”
“Give my regards to the Thagons when you pass by their place.”
Always the realist, Dregan replied, “They won’t hear it.”
“It’s the thought that counts,” said Gregory. “Nobody needs to die like they did.”
Eyes narrowing, Dregan said, “Nobody?”
“Maybe those assholes up north do. They earned it.”
“Maybe those assholes up north will get what they deserve.” As if party to the conversation, a chorus of ghastly moans erupted just outside the nearby wall. “If I succeed in getting the dead moving in that direction,” added Dregan. “Those assholes might get their just deserts thousands of times over.”
Continuing to rub his shoulder, Gregory made his way back to the vehicle. He went to the ground and inched his way underneath the driver’s side running board.
***
By the time Gregory had given the fuel system a complete once over, night had fully enveloped Bear River.
Arms crossed and leaning against the porch support beam, Dregan said, “Good to go?”
Gregory rose. “I didn’t see anything wrong under there. Took out the inline fuel filter just in case it was gummed up by the old gas.”
“We’ll know when I fire it up.”
Wiping his hands on his jeans, Gregory said, “Keys are in the ignition. Let’s go.”
“This beast can’t be more temperamental than the old surplus Blazer,” said Dregan. He opened the door, paused for a second and said, “What did you have to promise Hodges to get the keys?”
Gregory paused before rounding the rear corner of the slab-sided vehicle. “I had to promise him you’d be bringing it back in one piece. He’s pretty attached to her.”
Climbing in, Dregan said, “To be honest, it doesn’t do a thing for me.”
***
The drive to the north gate was a short one. Along the way, Dregan heard Judge Pomeroy’s promises in his head. Chain of command had been established in the early afternoon meeting in chambers with Deputies MacLeod and Hunt as witnesses. Should the elder Dregan not make it back, Gregory would take over his duties for as long as he was healthy. If something should befall Gregory, two things would happen. First, the community would vote on a successor for Sheriff—with Dregan’s nod going to MacLeod. Second, should Dregan’s brother Henry survive his battle with the flu, he would become Peter’s guardian. However, if both were to happen, leaving Peter an orphan, he would be allowed to either stay in Bear River alone, or take whatever belongings he wanted and be escorted to Duncan’s compound where he would remain until he was sixteen and mature enough to make his own decisions.
Thoughts swirling around mortality and family, Dregan stopped a block south of the wall and left the engine running.
The gate was easily wide enough to allow the large vehicle passage. It was flanked by two guard towers that were taller by half and showed no signs of movement. Blackout curtains had been rolled down to keep the zombies from catching sight of the guards Dregan knew were inside what amounted to little more than sandbag-reinforced plywood cubes perched atop a framework of two-by-fours. Knowing he would soon feel their vulnerability, he threw a shudder.
Seeing Peter running from the left-side tower, mane of blond hair flowing behind him, Dregan smiled wide. Before the boy had covered half of the block, he put the shifter in Neutral and set the foot brake.
Peter skidded to a halt in front of the vehicle and looked up. Mouth agape and having forgotten entirely about his father, who was staring back through the windshield glass, the stunned youngster began to walk a clockwise circle around the vehicle.
Dregan watched his boy in the passenger side mirror until he disappeared around back. He then picked him up in his mirror and kept his eyes glued to him, memorizing every crease and freckle on his face before finally locking his gaze with the youngster’s ice blue eyes.
“What do you think?”
“Does everything work?”
Dregan looked to Gregory, who was just climbing from the passenger seat.
Gregory nodded. “Sure does,” he said, then turned and struck up a conversation with one of the gate guards.
Dregan put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Your brother says it will. Now climb aboard. But don’t touch any buttons.”
Peter climbed through the open door and sat sidesaddle on his dad’s lap. He floated his hands over the controls without touching them. He craned around and stared into the dark, cavernous compartment behind the front seats. Finally, he returned his attention to his dad and said, “When will you be back?”
Dregan said nothing. He wrapped the boy up in a gentler version of the bear hug Gregory had received earlier.
Without warning, Gregory showed up outside the driver’s door. “Come on down, Peter,” he ordered. “Dad has a very important job to do.”
Dregan looked to Gregory. “Distractions in place?”
Gregory nodded.
“Are the dead clearing away from the road?”
“Mostly.”
“How many still in front of the gate?”
“Cleo said he figures there’s a hundred or so. He’s going to hit you with the flashlight when it’s time.”
“Get ahold of our friends to the west as soon as it’s clear the horde is on the move.” He paused for a moment and looked away. When he turned back his eyes were going red. “Do not forget to talk to Glenda,” he stressed. “Do not be like me.”
A tear traced Gregory’s cheek and fell to the road. “Stubborn?”
Dregan nodded. He reached down and tousled Peter’s hair. “You take care of your brother until I return.”
Peter had been following along with the conversation, eyes darting left and right to keep up with the rapid-fire question and answer session. Instinctively, he reached up and put a hand on his dad’s knee. “I love you, too.”
Dregan grimaced, then began to cough. The attack lasted thirty seconds and resulted in another blood- and mucus-soaked kerchief. “Love you too, boy.” Eyes moist more so from the emotion of the moment than the coughing fit, Dregan closed his door and fixed his gaze on the man by the gate.
Seeing the flashlight beam swing his way and the inner gate start to roll aside, Dregan nudged the transmission into gear and let up o
n the brake. By the time the borrowed vehicle had picked up some forward momentum, the inner gate was open wide and the yellow school bus keeping the dead at bay was beginning to roll slowly right-to-left under its own power.
Chapter 61
Eyes tearing up from the wall of stench pouring from the rear of the van, Cade contorted his body to escape the bloated, living corpse tumbling through the open door. Beginning to fall backwards, he regarded the male Z through what amounted to slits for eyes. Bodily fluids leached from numerous lesions crisscrossing its bare chest. At the front of its neck was a near-perfect fist-sized rectangle where skin and flesh and trachea had been excised with some kind of surgical blade. Giving in to gravity’s pull, a torrent of writhing maggots spilled from the opening, their cold smoothness pelting Cade’s chest and neck and face. Adding to the olfactory overload and growing toxic soup, putrefied tissue and unidentifiable internal organs sluiced from a pair of gaping bullet wounds to the monster’s lower abdomen.
Willing his eyes open, Cade let go of the M249 mid-fall and ripped the claw-like hands away from his face. In the next beat, he impacted the road and experienced a breath-robbing stab of pain as the slung shotgun bit into his back.
Before he could collect his thoughts, the weight of the dead thing hammered his shoulder and pinned it to the ground. With his left arm immobilized, he went for the Gerber strapped to his thigh. As he thumbed the snap, releasing the black blade from the scabbard, he saw the Humvee’s headlights rise up and the beams cut across the road.
As the clatter of the diesel engine reached his ears, he came to realize that there was a complete absence of sound where the Z was concerned. Instead of the growling and hissing and raspy calls indicative of a first turn whose vocal cords had dried and atrophied, all he heard was teeth grinding and clicking excitedly an inch from his ear.
Arching his back with all his might freed his left arm. Drawing his face away from the creature’s chattering maw, he wrapped the fingers on his left hand into its greasy hair, drew its head back, and buried the Gerber to the hilt in its right temple. As Cade felt the Z go limp and slide sideways from his body, he firmed his grip on the hair and blade and stared into the lifeless eyes of the thing that nearly saw him joining Brook prematurely.
Veins on his neck showing, he bellowed, “Not today, motherfucker! The Reaper can’t have me until my work is finished.”
The Humvee came to a stop a yard from his head.
Cade let go of the Z’s hair, released his grip on the Gerber, and flung the corpse off of him. As he rose up off the road and was bathed in the headlight wash, he looked down at his chest but didn’t bother to wipe away the detritus accumulated there. The maggots inching between the magazine pouches and crawling upward on the exposed skin of his neck didn’t seem to register to him, either.
Duncan stepped from the idling vehicle, leaving the door hang open. “I distinctly remember you telling Taryn to watch for beasties springing out from behind closed doors.”
Cade said nothing.
Peering down on the rotter, Duncan noted, “This one has no vocal cords.” He went to a knee and adjusted his glasses. “It’s been silenced. Damn cuts look real precise. Exactly how Daymon described the work on the critters Taryn and Wilson ran into in Woodruff.”
Still, Cade made no reply. He was squared up to the rear of the van, hands on hips, letting his eyes roam the interior, and learning that his earlier assumptions had been all wrong. There was no plush carpet or velvet headliner. There wasn’t a bed or even a pair of captain’s chairs in back. Judging by the welded metal cage between the cab and cargo area and that the floor and walls were covered in gore, the van was used solely for hauling the “silenced” Zs Adrian’s band of cannibals liked to use to booby trap buildings after thoroughly looting them.
Giving up on getting a reply from Cade, Duncan worked the Gerber from the rotter’s head. Then he rooted in his jacket pocket and found a stack of napkins taken from the greasy spoon south of Bear Lake. He wiped the blade and rose with it in hand.
“What’s spinning that hamster wheel of yours?”
Still staring into the van, Cade answered, “Adrian isn’t here.”
Duncan craned to see around Cade. “No, sir. Little Lotta did not grace us with her presence.” Seeing that dropping the derogatory pet name for the cannibal leader had no effect on his friend, he chucked the napkins to the ground and added, “What else is churning around inside that analytical mind of yours?”
“There’s nothing left to analyze,” said Cade, turning away from the parted doors.
Duncan turned the black dagger over in his hand and shot his friend a questioning look.
Finally, Cade relented. “I’m pissed that Adrian’s up north all safe and sound while Helen and Ray are about to be buried and the Bear River woodcutters”—he stabbed a finger east—“are incubating maggots inside that barn.”
“Can’t change the past,” drawled Duncan. “But we can change the future.”
Cade shook his head. “Thanks to Iris, they know exactly where we are. Sure, we took out a sizeable number of them, but rest assured, she’s still coming for her stuff. And when she does it’ll be with more of these silent meat missiles and her best shooters.” He let his gaze settle on the Humvee.
Reading his mind, Duncan said, “We’re nearly winchester on ammo for the Ma Deuce, too.”
Cade nodded agreeably, then looked over his shoulder.
Duncan followed his gaze. Saw Lev and Jamie moving wraith-like in the shadows cast from the flames, picking their way down the road, periodically pausing to inspect the wreckage and bodies.
“Because of the way the van door swung closed on you, I don’t think Lev and Jamie had an angle when the thing pounced.” Duncan acknowledged the approaching pair with a nod and then turned back to face Cade. “And I won’t mention it to them, either.” He handed the dagger back, handle first.
Cade shrugged off the Saiga and returned it to Duncan. “I only expended nine rounds.”
“To great effect,” conceded Duncan ahead of a soft, mournful chuckle.
Sensing that Duncan had exhausted his line of questioning, Cade turned the tables. “What are you thinking?”
Duncan looked up and spotted a tiny point of light zipping steadily across the southern sky. After watching the satellite until it was lost behind the tops of a nearby copse of trees, he said, “I’m thinking I want to be done with this nonstop killing.” The Vietnam vet lowered his gaze and regarded Cade. Saw on his friend’s face a thousand yard stare the likes of which he had seen last on shell-shocked grunts clamoring for that final spot on the blood-slicked floor of his Huey.
Seconds ticked by.
Lev and Jamie arrived and paused by the Humvee’s open door.
Finally, just as Duncan opened his mouth to greet the pair, Cade said in a low menacing tone, “Done killing?” He held the Gerber in front of his face. The reflected flames made it look like some kind of medieval weapon imbued with magical properties. “Hell, Duncan, I’m just getting started.”
Chapter 62
“Slow down, girl,” said Dregan.
Wanting to shoot the gap with just inches to spare—or maybe even leave some paint on the nose of the yellow school bus—he tapped the brakes and firmed his grip on the steering wheel. Still twenty yards from the front gate and with the borrowed vehicle moving just above walking speed, he saw the dead beginning to spill through the man-sized opening. To the right of the widening gap, standing in a ragged line, were a dozen helmeted men and women wearing various pieces of sporting goods for armor. Clutched in their gloved hands and held near horizontal to the ground were slender, twelve-foot pikes fashioned from lightweight aluminum pipe and tipped with throwing javelins taken from the equipment room of a nearby high school.
As the speedometer reached twenty miles per hour, Dregan saw the pikers step forward in unison and thrust their pikes head-high into the zombies lurching into the gap. As the first wave of twice-dead creatures f
ell vertically to the road, the pikers turned their weapons to the right to make room for the speeding vehicle.
Two ticks after seeing the pikers swing their weapons north, Dregan felt their eyes on him as the front bumper cleared the threshold where the paved road became a rutted dirt lane feeding into a nearby orchard. In his left-side vision he saw the woman driver hunched over the wheel of the bus. Her arm was extended and she was flashing him an encouraging thumbs-up.
The weak beam of the twenty-year-old headlights picked up the snarling faces of the second wave of dead at about the same time they were being sucked under its squared front end.
Instinctively, Dregan leaned away from the side window and matted the accelerator.
As the truck exited the breach moving north of thirty miles an hour the combined thumps of bodies being bowled away and peal of nails raking its flat sides caused Dregan to cringe. The wheel jerked in his hands and the right side rose up as the tires ground soft, fleshy things into the mud.
Grimacing at the follow-on sound of bones snapping under the vehicle’s weight, he fumbled in the dark with his right hand trying to find three specific and very important switches on the dash. As he continued the search, he started tooting the horn with the palm of the hand he was steering with. Near simultaneously, with the blaring horn drowning out all else, he found two of the switches. Depressing the first started the hazard lights flashing. Toggling the second, newly installed item, sent red and blue light lancing in all directions from the truck’s flat roof.
A half-beat after Gregory’s cobbled-on addition to the vehicle illuminated the orchard, making the skeletal trees seem to pulse and sway, he found the third switch and activated the vehicle’s most important feature.
Looking down from the right-side guard tower, Gregory and Peter had been witness to the heroics below. The tower vibrated underneath their feet as the school bus rolled forward, closing the gap and mashing a trio of monsters against the cement walls.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 33