“Can you run the FLIR over the site?” asked Cade.
“FLIR coming on line,” responded Haynes. “Patching the feed to the cabin monitor.”
Underneath the helo’s angular chin, the gimbal-mounted pod containing the advanced optics suite came to life.
Inside the troop compartment, Cade flipped up his goggles and watched the moving image captured by the thermal camera on the flat panel affixed to the aft-facing bulkhead.
The inferno had reduced the mansion to nothing but cement foundation, stone fireplace footings, and a few lengths of what had been massive beams that had failed to burn completely.
The garage was a complete loss structurally. All Cade could distinguish from the rubble were the burned metal shells of several vehicles lost in the fire.
“No life,” said Lopez.
“I concur,” agreed Haynes.
As the helicopter made one last orbit, Cade plucked the Thuraya from a pocket and sent a quick SMS message to the phone Lev was monitoring. In it he detailed the number of dead near the intersection, then, rather reluctantly, he described what he had just witnessed on the ground, stressing that Daymon and Heidi were not accounted for. Finished, he stowed the phone and hung his head.
After a few seconds, Cade looked up and met Lopez’s stare, held it for a second, then told him all about the mansion and the missing couple, all the way down to their descriptions and capabilities. Feeling a headache coming on as Ari brought the helicopter around for a second pass, he rested his helmet against the bulkhead and stared into the darkness overhead. He stayed that way for a beat before redeploying his NVGs. Finally, gaze swinging over to the window, he said in a low voice, “We can go now.”
***
Overflying the first ambush site revealed to Cade that though the bodies were still lined up in a neat row and the pickups and automobiles were still parked haphazardly and blocking the side street, someone had stripped the former and butchered them for their meat. There wasn’t even enough left on the bones to attract the Zs ambling about the side street.
Main Street, on the other hand, was unrecognizable. The import and Cadillac once blocking the road were now half a block north. The former was on its side with its front end speared into a storefront all the way to its A-pillar. The latter, unbelievably, ended up balanced atop the thick trunk of an uprooted tree in a trampled yard fronting a two-story house.
“Lots of dead wankers down there,” observed Axe. “Haven’t seen that many since Salt Lake City.”
Cade cast a glance at him.
“It was overrun, mate. Worse than the District. Way worse.”
“I’m sure some of these are one and the same,” said Cade. “We’ve seen a horde moving north and south on the state route for several weeks now. Each time it returns it’s exponentially bigger.” He felt the helo nose down and watched the buildings lining Main Street glide by.
A few beats later they were nearing Woodruff’s northern limits and Cade was seeing the church steeple off the helo’s starboard side. Concurrently, the same image, picked up by the FLIR camera, was filling up the monitor to his fore.
“This new FLIR pod Whipper threw on can pick up heat sigs behind walls. They’re part of the same DARPA project responsible for the phosphor white NVGs,” called Haynes. “No heat sigs in the steeple. You satisfied, Wyatt? Or should we take a closer look?”
“Good money says Adrian’s called her flock home,” he replied.
“Sounds biblical,” noted Cross.
Revisiting the morbid scene at the Thagons’ place in his head, Cade said, “Nothing biblical about Adrian. She’s doing the same thing to the Bible that the radical Islamists do to the Koran. Her and her kind are evil. Pure evil.”
Griffin tapped a finger on his port-side window. “Looks like the Good Humor man had a very bad day.”
Cade craned but saw nothing.
Haynes said, “Coming up,” and the image on the monitor began to move. The steeple slipped away to screen-right and was quickly replaced by a boxy, wheeled object rendered in muted shades of gray. As more detail was revealed it became clear the image on the screen was of a vehicle resting on its roof.
“That wasn’t there earlier,” said Cade.
“The motor and exhaust apparatus are presenting as cold,” noted Axe.
The image grew small on the screen as the helicopter continued north at a slow low-level crawl.
Ari entered the conversation. “Maybe the mega-horde brought it with them from Salt Lake.”
“And maybe it still has some Sponge Bob popsicles in its freezer,” said Lopez sarcastically. “You guys remember running after the ice cream man?”
Griff perked up. “That Eddie Murphy skit was the shit.”
Cross piped up. “Oh man … I miss Nestle Crunch ice cream bars.”
Throwing cold water on the trip down memory lane, Lopez said, “Haynes, kindly put the latest intel on the monitor.”
“Anything for my best customers,” he quipped.
A few seconds passed before an overhead image of the location marked Adrianville on Cade’s map splashed on the screen.
Lopez said, “Study that for a moment, Wyatt. Then I’ll throw on the overlay showing where the other teams are laying up.”
Jumping into a mission mid-flow was totally foreign to Cade. Caught flat-footed, he said, “Looks a lot like UBL’s compound in Abbottabad.”
“It’s about ten times the size of Usama’s place,” Cross proffered.
“It holds ten times as many girlfriends as well,” quipped Griff.
Cade shot him a questioning look.
Seeing the subtle tilt to Cade’s head, Cross jumped in. “There’s goats roaming wild inside the perimeter.”
“And pigs in a pen behind a barn,” added Ari. “You believe that? In the middle of the end of the world these mutts find time to have a good old-fashioned barn raising.”
Griff said, “Maybe we can talk one of the Chinook drivers into taking a couple of hogs back to Bastion. Have us an honest to God hog roast.”
Ari flashed a thumbs-up to the customers in back. “Best idea I’ve heard out of you ground pounders in weeks. We’ll have us a full-on luau in the high desert of Utah. Haven’t had Kahlua pork since that layover in Pearl before the event changed everything.”
Haynes said, “And I haven’t had relations with a woman since that joint exercise.”
Tuning out the banter, Cade looked to Lopez and asked, “How many other teams?”
“Two Ranger chalks and a pair of ODA teams usually working out of Kit Carson. Both have been running ops out of Bastion for some time and happened to be on stand-down between rotations back to Springs.” He went on to detail their call signs and personnel make-up.
“That’s a lot of bodies,” Cade said, incredulous. “Are the 10th Group Green Berets the same teams Gaines commanded?”
Lopez nodded. “All top-notch pipe hitters. Hell, after the horrors his boys found in Green River, Beeson doesn’t want to see any of these monsters slip the net.”
As Cade committed the image on the screen to memory, he heard Ari in his headset talking to a two-ship flight somewhere northeast of their current position. Then the comms channel switched and Ari’s voice was replaced by the sound of Lopez hailing the two Green Beret teams designated Dagger One and Dagger Two.
Feeling much better about his prospects of returning home to Raven, Cade subconsciously reached for the wedding ring, but instead came up with his dog tags. Seeing Lopez shoot him a furrowed-brow look, he dropped the tags back into the slot between his plate carrier and MOLLE rig. Fighting the sheepish feeling brought about by getting caught showing even a scintilla of emotion, he went stone-faced and mouthed, “Next image.”
While Cade waited for Haynes to fulfill his request, he looked groundward just in time to see the southern edge of the small town of Randolph slip by underneath the slow-moving helicopter. There he saw hundreds of Zs crowding the half-dozen blocks making up the blink-once-and-y
ou-miss-it municipality. The structures lining yet another Main Street were damaged, some having been nudged from their foundations. Mere seconds after overflying the southern limits they were crossing the north end of town where a dozen windowless cars with mangled bumpers and dented sheet metal had been deposited in one mountainous tangle.
“Enemy strength estimates coming at you,” said Haynes as the satellite image of the triangular-shaped compound was replaced by camera stills shot at night from a hide very near to the walled compound.
Cade addressed Lopez. “I take it I’m not going to need the MSR?”
“We have overwatch teams in place. They’re going to hit the guards as soon as we’re making our move.”
“Roger that,” Cade said then continued staring at Lopez.
“You have something else?”
“One of the things I’ve been worried about is the presence of kids.”
Lopez shifted uneasily in his seat.
Cade continued to stare.
“Nothing concrete,” replied Lopez. “Overwatch has only been in place since 1900 hours.”
“There’s sports balls scattered all over the asphalt,” said Cross. “Also a few of those plastic playsets are set up on the grassy areas. There’s got to be kids on site.”
“Rules of engagement?” asked Cade.
“Once boots are on the ground it’s operator’s discretion to shoot,” said Lopez. “And that came straight out of Beeson’s mouth and was delivered with a wink.”
Cade said nothing. He was already trying to decide what he was going to do to the adult cannibals when he was looking them in the eyes. Figured whatever it was, it was by no means going to be pretty, nor was it going to be humane. For in his mind, these animals didn’t deserve to keep stealing air from the good people of the world.
Chapter 73
By crow, the distance between Randolph and Laketown, the latter of which was but a stone’s throw from the cul-de-sac compound near Bear Lake’s south shore, was roughly eleven miles. Overland via the snaking two-lane, the distance between the two was nearly double that.
From Randolph’s limits, US-30 cut north by east for nine miles before coming back on itself and shooting straight north by west to a meetup with Laketown a dozen miles away.
Somewhere along the first nine-mile run is where Cade figured the Ghost Hawk would overtake the shambling mega-horde.
***
Four minutes’ flight-time north of Randolph the stench of death found its way into the helo’s cabin. Cade’s hunch was confirmed seconds later when the FLIR picked up the mega-horde’s tail just prior to the dogleg where 30 shot west to Laketown. Consisting of several hundred stragglers, it stretched out for more than a mile behind the main body which had already made the turn and was lurching north by west on a collision course with Laketown.
“Behold, off the port side,” said Ari over the shipwide comms. “In all their decaying glory, we have an honest to goodness mega-horde in the flesh … or, what’s left of it.”
Haynes made a rimshot-like sound in his mike.
The main body of Zs were stretched out in a long, narrow column for as far as Cade could see. Amazingly they were mostly staying to the road, although here and there the outliers would get caught up in a wire fence and cause a pile-up until either the posts gave or the stray rotters were sliced into pieces and their bodies trampled in place.
As Haynes’s laughter filtered back from the cockpit, Cade was struck by how seamlessly the big aviator was meshing with Ari’s unorthodox style. At times, it seemed as if Haynes was channeling the late Durant’s acerbic wit. Once Haynes quieted down, Ari cracked, “Keep your arms and hands inside the bus at all times. Wouldn’t want one of you to get bit.”
Not funny, thought Cade. He looked to Skipper and asked him if the scientists had made any improvements to the Omega antiserum.
Skipper shook his head. Then he offered his condolences for Cade’s loss. “I’ve been trying to figure a way to say that since I closed the door behind us back at your compound.”
Cade bobbed his head, saying, “It is what it is.”
“And your daughter—” Unsure of her name, he paused.
“Raven,” offered Cade.
“How is Raven taking it?”
“Good as can be expected for a twelve-year-old.”
Feeling the helo banking hard to port, Cade went quiet and stared out his starboard window at the cloud cover. A beat later the helo returned to level flight and Bear Lake was visible. Though it was still miles distant, viewed in white phosphor it looked so true to life that he felt the urge to take an eye-opening plunge into its frigid waters.
Snapping him back to reality, the helo’s airspeed halved and the monitor filled with the real-time feed from the constantly sweeping FLIR pod.
“Keep your eyes peeled, gents and gents,” said Ari. “We have officially entered Indian country.”
***
The stretch of 30 running west to Laketown was home only to small groups of walking dead and head-high mounds of moldering, twice-dead corpses.
Twice the FLIR picked up herds of deer, their individual forms presenting as white silhouettes.
“No two-legged beasties,” declared Haynes.
“Clear on my front,” added Griff as Cross nodded his approval.
“No contacts to starboard,” said Skipper.
Silent nearly the whole way, Axe piped up, “I’ll take bloody Bambi over getting shot at any day.”
“Shot at you may be before the night’s over,” said Ari.
“From the mouth of Yoda,” quipped Haynes. Then, all business, he added, “Coming up on the cul-de-sac garrison. Stay frosty.”
Cade smiled as he shifted in his seat. Glancing groundward, he saw the drive-in diner Duncan had mentioned was used as a rallying point when Dregan and his crew came to aid in the assault. Without their timely help, Duncan, Daymon, and the others may have been killed along with Oliver and Foley. Sitting there all alone at the confluence of two westbound roads, the sight ubiquitous to small towns everywhere, made Cade pine for the time before the dead walked the earth, now more than ever.
The cul-de-sac was just as Duncan had described it: several two- and three-story houses distributed evenly around a circular patch of asphalt fed by a paved road, its entry point set back roughly two blocks to the south. The gate and cement freeway noise barriers were gone. Cade presumed they had been carted north and were incorporated into Adrianville’s formidable perimeter wall.
***
A short flight north by west had them nearing Garden City. Down below Cade saw that someone had jammed the main road with a number of vehicles. Every one of the north/south-running streets had been given the same treatment. All in all, it looked as if every car registered in the tiny lakeside town had been used to deter passage through it.
During the five-second Garden City flyover, the FLIR picked up what everyone guessed was a raccoon, or, less likely, a very large feral cat picking its way through an alley running behind a row of boarded-up storefronts.
Other than that lone thermal hit, darkness and dead things owned the streets.
***
Continuing on the due north heading took them out over the western edge of Bear Lake for a short while before finally making landfall again on the southern edge of Fish Haven, Idaho.
Over the shared comms, Ari said, “We just crossed over into Idaho where open carry is legal, gentlemen. Next town is Fish Haven. Cade’s map doesn’t indicate there’s a forward listening post. Still, this close to target I’m not going to take any chances on us being fingered before go time. To be safe, we’ll loiter here for a spell. When I get the word I’ll bring us around south by west. One big loop, real slow.” He paused as the Ghost Hawk slowed and stopped in a dead hover over the lakeshore then hailed Skipper over the comms.
Cade saw the crew chief stiffen and shrug out of his safety harness. “Skip here, over,” he replied, already rising up out of his usual seat.
“Deploy the starboard mini,” ordered Ari. “You see anything down below that’s on two legs and throwing a heat sig, shoot it before it can pull an E.T. and phone home.”
“Roger that,” said the crew chief. Then, without pause, he worked a lever and depressed a button that caused the hatch in front of the starboard minigun to begin parting noiselessly. Grabbing the grips on the weapon capable of spitting three thousand rounds a minute downrange, he swung the barrel downward and lifted up slightly until the swivel-mount baseplate locked with an audible click. A tick later the two halves of the weapons door reached the stops and seated into the airframe with a pair of soft clunks. Cupping his boom mike, Skipper said, “Starboard mini is on line.”
“Copy that,” said Ari as the helo resumed forward movement. “If Fish Haven is all clear we’ll proceed north and follow the same routine at Saint Charles, Bloomington and then we’ll just conduct a long-range sweep at our loiter position southwest of Paris.”
With the slipstream beginning to tear at his flight suit, Skipper put his head on a swivel and dragged the weapon’s six-barreled muzzle wherever his gaze happened to go.
***
There was no sign of a watcher anywhere inside Fish Haven’s minuscule city limits. Furthermore, the smattering of homes on the outskirts of town were devoid of life. As soon as the barren, desert-like terrain was again filling up the port-side windows, the ship’s turbine whine increased unexpectedly and Ari popped the craft up and over a picket of mature trees. Peering out his window, Cade saw that the trees, likely planted as a windbreak of sorts, ran all the way east to the lake’s sandy shore.
Feeling his stomach settle as the helo resumed level flight, Cade shifted his gaze from the landscape scrolling by outside the ship and looked around the cabin.
Arms crossed over their weapons and heads bowed slightly, both SEALs appeared to be deep in thought. Cade concluded they were both stuffing all of the extraneous flotsam and jetsam not pertaining to the task at hand in a place similar to where his were stowed.
Sensing Cade’s scrutiny, each operator flashed a thumbs-up and tapped their weapons—shooter semaphore for “good to go.”
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 38