THE COALITION BOOK 3
2% SOLUTION OF THE DEAD
Robert Mathis Kurtz
“He did it again,” Oliver said.
Cutter leaned over the edge of the rooftop and peered north. He could clearly make out the body of the elephant where it lay sprawled in the intersection. Only a week before, the collective efforts of a hundred men had succeeded in clearing those roadways of debris. Things were slowly coming together. It seemed, at last, that the world might actually be getting back to something like normal.
Except for the crazy bastard in Trust Tower.
“I heard him with that bullhorn,” the boy told his foster father. “He was yelling crazy stuff down at the elephant herd. And then opened fire. With that big gun he has up there. He killed it really fast, but then he kept shooting at it.”
Father and adopted son looked down at the animal’s body which looked broken and pitiful from their 13th floor perch.
“What happened to the herd?” Cutter asked.
“They ran around for a while. Like they were in a panic. Then the big one, the one you said is the bull—he kind of got behind the other ones and made them run to the east. I saw them hide in the woods. Where you said the rich neighborhoods used to be. Before Mr. Dale burned them all down.”
Ron sighed. He gazed out, pulled his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the city for movement. Already there were a couple of crews making their way carefully toward the tower. But they wouldn’t be able to get out in the open until somebody went inside to pacify the crazy bastard on the 41st floor.
“See any deaders?” Oliver asked.
Keeping the binoculars to his eyes, he looked up and down the streets within his line of sight. The air was cold and clear. The days had been below freezing for more than a week, the skies cobalt blue in the height of noon; stunningly clear at night with the stars gleaming in the heavens. There was almost no wind, at all.
“I haven’t seen a zombie in almost a week,” he told Oliver. “What about you?”
“I saw a couple when Mrs. Leak came by to take us to school,” he said. “She plugged them both, even though they were walking away from us. They almost always do that now…run away, I mean.”
He took the instrument from his face and made eye contact with the boy. “Yeah, they do tend to do that around here now. But out by the airport. On the edge of town. Where the forest crowds in. They don’t run out there. Those are still crazed and hungry and come at you in a second. You never know if any of those are wandering into downtown. So never let your guard down.”
“I don’t,” Olive replied. “It’s just that the ones around here…well, they’re afraid, these days. It’s like Mr. Dale and the others say. They’re scared of us, now, instead of the other way around.”
“Yeah, well.” He paused. “That could change in a second. Don’t you forget that.”
“I won’t,” Oliver said.
Off to the west there was the sudden growl of a diesel engine. He brought the eyepieces to his face and looked. There were two bulldozers making their way slowly down Tryon Street. The avenue had been all but cleared over the past few weeks. There was now a route completely clear of debris from city center all the way to the airport.
Colonel Dale’s plans were coming together. Everything seemed to be working like a finely oiled machine. Except for the crazy bastard in the Trust Building.
“What the fuck?” Ron asked the air.
“What the fuck what?” came the reply from Oliver.
Cutter smiled and finally let the binoculars dangle heavily around his neck. He reached out and tousled the boy’s fair hair. “I can’t figure out exactly why Dale puts up with the crazy guy in the bank tower. It bugs the shit out of me,” he admitted.
Long ago Ron and Jean had decided not to keep anything at all from the boy. They would always tell him the truth about everything they did, and everything they thought. So far, it was a good idea.
“Well, he must have a good reason for it,” Oliver said. “But he needs to stop shooting at the elephants. That’s the third one he’s killed. And always teasing them, screaming at them with that darn bullhorn of his.” The boy turned and took a step back toward their shelter, the blockhouse that was in all respects their home. “Anyway, mom…Jean has breakfast for us.” The boy still was not quite accustomed to calling Ron and Jean mom and dad. But he was almost getting used to it. The words would sneak out, and sometimes he didn’t correct himself.
The two—father and son now for all that they were not blood related—made their way across the rooftop. Above them was a morning sky of blue, the sun filling it with light. Around them the city of Charlotte was quickly coming to life again. The place was a central urban grouping of buildings and streets surrounded by a vast encircling ring of blackened earth. Dale and his crews of sappers had been busy for months burning down the old neighborhoods. These days you could see right out to what was once the city limits—all the way to the wall of green that now surrounded the town. Forests sucking up the carbon and farmlands and fields going to woodlands.
It’s not quite the plan Ron would have constructed to rebuild the world, but so far it seemed to be working. These days the only negative things about the situation that he could complain about was the crazy bastard in the bank tower, and the army of angry dead that still filtered through the circle of trees that did nothing much to protect the city. The ones remaining in Charlotte seemed to be wary, if not actually pacified, but the ones coming in from the wilderness—they were still lots of trouble.
Cutter hoped Dale knew what he was doing and that he had a plan to handle the millions of those things that he knew were still out there, waiting to get in.
**
Jean heard the two approaching across the rooftop, their boots scuffing bits of gravel as they came near. She could hear them talking, their voices clear in the cool air that was coming in through the opened door. At first Cutter had balked at allowing Jean to prop the door open that way, but as the weeks passed and the situation around them got better he ceased to complain and allowed her the alteration in his old routine. The access points were well secured and, as he’d just discussed with Oliver, they rarely spotted the tottering forms of the zombies in the area. It was a risk that was acceptable, he’d finally decided.
“We smell breakfast,” Cutter announced as he and the boy strode through the open door.
“Smells good,” Oliver added, heading toward the table in the center of the big room.
“Eggs,” she told them. “Over medium, with pancakes and syrup and coffee.” Jean was just delivering the last of the platters to the table as they joined her.
“What? No bacon?” Oliver pretended to complain and Jean gave him a false scowl.
“You guys are getting spoiled,” she insisted as she sat and joined them.
Ron looked up and smiled, seeing that his new family was doing the same—their smiles beaming back at him. Maybe they’d make it, after all. It was possible. He never thought he’d be able to say that, or even think about it. But now, with Colonel Dale and the others making so much headway, and the zombies it seemed in retreat, he was able to think in such positive terms.
“Let’s eat,” he said.
Jean looked up from her chair as they all sat. Quickly, before either of her men could react, she reached out and grasped their hands in hers. And she whispered a quick prayer—the kind of prayer her father would have uttered at mealtimes—and followed with ‘Amen’. And she was surprised and pleased to hea
r both Ron and Oliver respond the same. She looked up, flashing a wide smile.
“So. What’s up for today?” Oliver asked.
“Well, I’m supposed to meet with the Colonel after we get you to school. Not sure what’s on the agenda today, but I have a suspicion.” Then, quickly, he spoke again. “But let’s not talk about work at breakfast. Let’s just eat and enjoy the morning. Later, we can talk.”
NEXT
Ron and Oliver looked up and down the street. There were a couple of groups of people on the far side walking in single-file. Three blocks closer to the city center a big, green John Deere tractor emerged at an intersection pulling a twenty-foot trailer loaded with iron rebar. The engine muttered at them for a moment, echoing down the concrete canyon, and then it quickly vanished, heading probably for City Hall where teams were doing some repairs on some of the buildings that were being reclaimed from the elements.
“It’s nice not seeing the damned zombies anymore,” Oliver said. “Just people.”
“Well…mainly people,” Ron said. “You know how it is.”
“Sure I do. Never take any chances. I never forget,” the boy told him. “They can appear from anywhere at any time.” He kicked at a rounded pebble on the sidewalk. “I remember one time…” He paused, considering one of many horrors he’d witnessed in his time alone. “One time I was in a house, looking for cans of food. And I kicked a wooden box that was lying on the floor in the kitchen where I was scrounging. Soon as I kicked it the damn thing turned over and there was a deader inside it. A head and a torso with one arm and a bony nub on the other shoulder and no legs at all. The thing came crawling at of that box. Fast, too.” Ron watched as the kid shuddered, shaking his arms and shoulders, and then smiled up at him. “Popped it with a shot right in the forehead. 9mm.”
“That’s my boy,” Ron said, laughing. And he reached down and ruffled the boy’s blonde hair. “Now, come on, let’s get you to school.”
**
“I hate the fucking zombies.”
Cutter looked at the Colonel. He didn’t say anything. Everyone hates the fucking zombies. What else? He sighed, looking down the street and up the avenue. Tryon Street. The city towers loomed above them. The sun was shining and the air was mild, promising warmth by mid-day but nothing more. He decided that the other man needed to hear something cheerful. Dale was under a lot of pressure.
“Shit, Colonel. We hardly see them anymore. They’re almost all gone.”
“Oh, no.” The Brit shook his head. As with Cutter, the officer still dressed out as if the streets were packed with the damned monsters, all of them ready to kill and devour their flesh. “They’re out there. The land past the city is crawling with them.” He turned toward Cutter and stared hard, the superior officer coming to the fore, making his rank felt, even if technically that rank meant nothing to Cutter.
“And they’re here, too.” He nodded toward the office tower across from them. “Open the wrong door and a dozen of them will spill out. Unlock an abandoned trunk and one will bloom out of it, where it had been waiting, trapped in there for two years.” Colonel Dale smiled. “There’s no telling how many of them there are still sitting among us. Ticking time bombs,” he added.
“Yeah, well…you’re right.” Cutter rolled his shoulders and stepped into the middle of the road. Tryon and the rest of the city center were clear of wreckage these days. Together, they’d all worked in unison and removed the shattered autos and ruined trucks and trailers. They’d cobbled together bulldozers and front-end loaders and all manner of heavy equipment to get it done. Now you could walk for four miles north to south and east to west and never have to avoid a stack of teetering trash or take care to tiptoe past burned autos or storefronts with the risk of an army of the rotting dead emerging from hiding. There was almost nowhere left for the damned things to hide.
“But the thing is, Colonel Dale…they might still be in these buildings and locked away in hidey holes…but the fact of the matter is that they’re on the run. The city is ours now, and it’s going to stay that way.” He actually grinned. “Just like you said.”
The officer looked around, pleased with the accomplishments but not ready to admit victory. That was a dangerous thing. Hubris was dangerous and not a fault he would allow. “We can’t be too careful,” he said. “We have to always be ready.”
“So,” Cutter said, breaking the brief silence. Off in the distance he could actually hear a couple of truck motors. The teams were finding and repairing all sorts of motor vehicles and it was almost commonplace to see one moving down some of the bigger streets. “What are we going to do today? I have my suspicions, but…”
“We’re going into the building today. Just the two of us.”
“Lieber?” He heard a scratching noise coming from an alcove about a hundred feet north and turned to see what was causing it. Something like leather on concrete. Still, his heart rate went up.
“Yeah,” Dale said. “I haven’t been up there in two days and…well…his medication is pretty much exhausted. I keep him doped on stuff that’s not doing the job. But it’s the best I can do.”
“I still don’t understand what it is you need this guy for.” Ron was talking, but his eyes had not left the spot on the street where the sound had first come. The officer’s eyes, too, seemed to be focused there, even if all of his attention was not.
“We need him. Believe me. If there was anyone else who could do it, I’d have that person up there instead of Lieber. And when he’s finished, I’ll bring him down and we can put him in the hospital where someone can take better care of him. Hell…maybe one of the doctors can fabricate that precious medicine that’s all used up. We just can’t manufacture things like lithium and neuroleptics. Someday, maybe.”
“It’ll be that same drill, then?”
Dale nodded. “Yeah. Me going in first, you bringing up the rear. I’ll talk to him, feel him out, and see how he’s doing. I probably won’t need any help…but you never know. I’ve seen Lieber—”
The officer clipped his sentence short. Both men came immediately to attention as a dark and tattered form staggered out of the recessed doorway they’d both been eyeing suspiciously.
“Zombie,” Ron whispered. “I’ve got him.”
Dale did nothing except step back two paces. Cutter unslung his 30.06 and drew a bead on the thing. As most of them did these days, the rotted thing saw them and instead of turning on them, it went in the other direction, as if seeing that it had made a terrible error for which it was about to pay most dearly.
A single shot.
Its brains exploded, painting the wall in front of it with red and black goo as it fell like a sack of water to the pavement.
“They almost all seem to run away, now.”
“But you never know,” Dale said, as they walked slowly over, knowing that they had to check out the area from which it had appeared. “You just never know.”
And then they were headed toward the Bank Trust Tower.
NEXT
Stan went to the balcony and looked down on the city. He stared at it, block after block of structures. Some here thought that it was the last functioning city on Earth, but Lieber knew better than that. There were others. None of those were as well-placed and situated for survival the way this one was, but they were out there.
And because of his work, those other cities would be dominated by this one. Lieber would be rewarded for helping them build and retain that dominance.
Scanning the cityscape, he looked for activity. It was once rare to see anything living down in the streets and alleyways. But now it was almost like it had been, if you discounted the general clutter of the lanes that fed into the main thoroughfares.
People moved down there now. They walked right out in the open, in a way that they had not been able to do for almost two years. The living dead were almost gone from Charlotte, in great part due to the efforts of Stan Lieber.
He smiled and peered through the scope of his
30.06 rifle. It wasn’t his favorite gun, but he liked to use it from time to time; mainly just for picking out targets. It had been days since he’d fired the .50 caliber and he could almost feel his hands itching to let loose its deathly power. Another one of the damned elephants had gone down beneath the strength of a single shot.
Why did Colonel Dale and the others put up with the big beasts? Stan knew that they had more than enough firepower to get rid of the huge pests! But they were leaving it up to him to clean up that particular detail.
He swept the scope to the place where the elephant had lain. It had been butchered and carried away. Lieber had been surprised the way Dale’s people had carved up the carcass. They were going to eat it! He’d never considered that when he’d fired the round that killed the big cow. He hoped that they would thank him for providing them with fresh meat.
But he knew they wouldn’t do that.
Lieber frowned.
None of them knew what he had done for them. Well, none but the Colonel and maybe the people closest to the officer. Sweeping the rifle from north to south, he looked to see what was going on. Dale and his people had actually been driving vehicles through the streets lately. He could hear the mutter of their diesel engines even from 33 floors. SUVs and Hummers, mostly. There were some pickups in the little armadas of automobiles. One day he’d even seen a cube van, a bulldozer, and a tractor with a flatbed trailer driving out toward the airport.
They had the road open all the way from downtown to the airport.
There were hardly any zombies along the stretch of roadway, these days. Thanks mainly to Lieber, of course! His lips turned down in another increasing frown. Unless Colonel Dale told the others of his hard work, Stan would never receive the credit for which he was owed so much by so many! It was the satellite reconnaissance that provided Dale and his soldiers with the intelligence they needed. If not for Lieber, those images would not have been possible. He could aim those orbital cameras on the city and show the Colonel where pods of zombies lurked, waiting to pounce.
The Coalition: Part III 2% Solution Of The Dead (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 3) Page 1