A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2)

by Daniel Humphreys

  She gave him a tight nod and shouldered the rifle. Following her lead, he clasped both hands around the pistol but kept it pointed low. His hands were liable to shake when he aimed, anyway. He had sixteen bullets in the gun. Given the skill he’d developed, that was good for no more than four kills.

  So, do better.

  The infected that tore through the brush on his side had been starvation-thin even before its first death. The weather-beaten pair of overalls it wore draped to the point that it seemed a child playing dress-up, but the bloodstains on its chin and the teeth it bared as it saw Sandy ended those thoughts.

  He brought the pistol up and fired—too soon. His first shot took it in the shoulder and didn’t even knock it off balance. It bent over as it crept up and out of the ditch, boots scraping on the blacktop. He fired again, missing again.

  Kendra fired two quick shots. “You got it?” She sounded half-hysterical, and he thought that he might not sound all that better if he tried to speak, himself.

  Third time—a puckered wound opened up between the steel gray of the ball bearing eyes, and the infected in overalls collapsed to the ground. His hands were shaking, as he’d thought they might, but not as bad as he’d feared. Sandy lowered the gun. “Yeah,” he managed. “Yeah.”

  Doors slammed, and the pitch of the engine raised. Sandy didn’t dare turn to look; another pair of emaciated, blood-streaked figures were beginning to push their way through to the road. When the squeal of the Humvee’s brakes sounded no more than a few feet away, the tension left his body in a rush.

  “Get in!” Jason shouted. Sandy turned and couldn’t stop the laugh that burst forth. The younger man had his upper body up out of the turret ring, though he’d swiveled the big machine gun on top around to the rear. He stepped around, pulled the passenger door open, and got in. The sense of security that came over him as he closed the door was indescribable. It was, perhaps, the safest he’d felt since the night he’d spent in Buddy’s RV.

  Kendra slid into the seat behind Richard. “Go, go, go!”

  He kept his foot on the brake. “Take it easy. They ain’t getting in here.” He turned halfway in the seat and tapped Jason on the hip. “Get back down inside, and close that hatch as you go.”

  A dozen or more infected had broken through to the road now, and they staggered forward. Ineffectual hands slapped on the heavy doors and windows. The thumps were unnerving, but Sandy realized that Richard was right. They weren’t getting in here.

  “Why didn’t they do this at the bridge?” Sandy wondered aloud. An infected in a ripped business suit tried to bite through the window on his side. The sound of teeth on glass made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  Richard shrugged and eased his foot off the brake. The Humvee began to roll forward. “They may not have had anywhere to go. I don’t know. Who knows what that scene looked like before the Air Force blew the span. They could have gotten flanked. They sure couldn’t drive through the barriers and the bodies, they’d have gotten stuck for sure.”

  He gave the Humvee a bit of throttle. Sandy craned his neck around and looked out the rear window. The throng of infected kept staggering after them, but even at what felt like Sunday driving speeds, the truck outpaced them.

  “This thing got air conditioning?” Jason asked in the sudden silence.

  Richard grinned and stabbed a control on the dashboard. Hot air blew out of the vents for a moment but rapidly chilled. “You guys are in luck, when I was in hardly any of them had AC. Guess they figured once they added all the armor and windows that didn’t roll down, they had to do something.”

  Sandy groaned and shivered as cold air washed over his damp clothing. All things considered, it wasn’t the coldest car he’d ever been in, but after so many months of natural temperatures, anything less felt like this side of heaven.

  “What’s the plan?” Kendra said.

  Richard shrugged. “I’m thinking we’ll do a couple of loops through town, see how things look. I’m going to keep it slow, see if I can build up a good wagon train, and then I’ll shoot down toward the gun shop. If the roads held up over the winter, we can leave them way behind, maybe even lose them.” He glanced over at Sandy. “I brought the tools, all your stuff is still in there.”

  He sighed in relief. He’d almost forgotten the distraction device he’d cobbled together the night before. He still needed a few things to bang it all together, but everyone had assured him that the pawn shop would have more than what he needed. “Sounds good.”

  “Everybody catch your breath,” Richard ordered. “Let’s take some time. Who knows, we might enjoy the view.”

  Chapter 14

  March 12, 2026

  Camp Perry, Ohio

  Z-Day + 3,067

  Over the years, the hardest thing for Charlie to become accustomed to—other than the shamblers—was the shift in the pace of existence. The outbreak had murdered the culture of instant gratification and wrecked the just-in-time supply chain. Life, in between heart-stopping fights for survival, turned more deliberate.

  In some ways that change had been welcome, but Charlie still had the occasional pang for some fast food drive-through.

  His partnership with Pete and the Marines had turned things upside down yet again.

  With little guidance from Pete, he’d stuck with Del Arroz and his squad after the convoy arrived in Ohio. The ride itself had been strange. Charlie was no stranger to going out beyond the walls, but they kept most of their salvage runs within a hundred miles of the community. He’d consulted his well-used road atlas, and back in the day, the run to Camp Perry would have been right around 300 miles. Detours around damaged roads and destroyed bridges had added enough to the trip that the sun was dipping below the horizon by the time they reached their destination.

  Charlie tried to get a little sleep along the way, but the shocks in the military truck—Del Arroz informed him the vehicle was an ‘MRAP’—were nothing to brag about on the uneven roads. Eventually, he’d given up on sleep and settled for studying the passing landscape through one of the small windows.

  The familiar sight of the Wild, with its crumbling buildings, overgrown with greenery, didn’t change much over the miles and was, in a way, a small comfort. The absence of any shamblers wiped that comfort out and left Charlie with a gnawing sense of worry that only grew the further they traveled.

  “Where are they?” he’d yelled to Del Arroz at one point.

  The Marine shrugged. “Ever since the big horde hit us and you guys, they’ve up and vanished. I don’t know if we drew them all together, or what, but…” Del Arroz shrugged again.

  Charlie frowned and took another look out the window. They’d learned a hard lesson. When things changed with the shamblers, it wasn’t for the good. If they were still changing, what was coming next?

  He forgot his worry once they were inside the walled-off portion of Camp Perry. It wasn’t the sense of safety—it was the fact that he simply didn’t have time to stop and consider it.

  The MRAP pulled to a stop, and the Marines burst into motion. They collected bags and other personal gear, then rushed out of the vehicle toward some unknown destination. Charlie followed along in their wake, but he kept up with ease—some of the packs Del Arroz’s squad carried made his own look like an overnight bag. The squad headed to a trailer with no distinguishing marks that Charlie could make out. Cots jammed the inside, and the trailer was so narrow that they sat on an offset pattern. This required the Marines to snake their way through as they headed to their respective beds. Del Arroz pointed a free one out to Charlie, and he deposited his load on the bed.

  After a quick stop at a trailer outfitted as a common restroom, they headed to something more familiar to Charlie—a mess hall. It was fancier and better-built than the one back home, but the layout was just-shy of identical. The squad chowed down in earnest. They’d eaten on the road, but it had been a quick, make-do meal of MRE’s. For some reason, Del Arroz had plucked the Charms ca
ndy out of Charlie’s pouch and admonished him that it was bad luck to eat them. Charlie shrugged it off. As far as personal tics went, he’d seen worse over the years.

  Rather than return to the barracks, one of Del Arroz’s teammates produced a ratty deck of cards and dealt out poker hands. Another produced a few bags of MRE Skittles and divided them out into a pile for each player.

  “Don’t eat your pot,” the dealer joked.

  Charlie left his cards face down on the table and spread them out. Rather than the typical red or blue background, there was a Marine Corps logo printed on the back of the cards. When he picked them up and fanned them out, he got another surprise. Along with the typical symbols of the various cards, the center of each featured a mugshot-style picture with bold name headings along the bottom. He had a pair, eights in clubs and hearts, but the picture on each was different, so there didn’t seem to be a lot of repetition.

  “What’s with the glamour shots?”

  Del Arroz grinned. “These are from early days, Chuck. Soon as we figured out who the folks behind the outbreak were, they ran out sets of these on the print shop on the carrier. Helps us get used to seeing the faces. We caught most of them on their little island hideaway, but a couple must have missed the boat because they weren’t there, and their friends swore up and down they never made it.”

  “Who’s left?”

  “Two. Jack of Hearts and the King of Spades. More than likely they’re dead meat by now.” The Marine consulted his own cards and pushed a pair of Skittles to the center of the table. “Ante up.”

  Charlie added his own ante and said, “Must have been different, being on a ship. You guys have covered some miles. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?”

  “I had this thing with one of the Navy chicks,” PFC Tom Rogneby proclaimed, reordering his cards. It must not have made a difference in his stakes because he made a face but still pushed in his Skittles.

  Del Arroz cut him off. “You sure it was a chick? It’s hard to tell with the Navy, bro.” The rest of the Marines chortled; Charlie was too fascinated by the interplay to react. He was paying enough attention to discard two cards, keeping an ace to go along with his eights. He drew an ace and another eight to complete the full house. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his expression impassive.

  “Fuck off, Del Arroz, let me tell the story. She rotated out to the Wichita, right, doing drone recon of the Eastern seaboard a few years back.” He paused his story as play went around the table. With the action back to him, Rogneby discarded. “Deal me two. So they do an overflight of the Pentagon, right? And smack dab in the middle of the courtyard, there’s, like a freaking tower of zulus, all laid out in a ring. The guys in the center must have suicided out rather than take the bite, cause they’re lying there pretty as you please, without a scratch. Couple beefy guys in business suits—Secret Service, probably—another three or so guys in MP gear, and a tall old dude in a suit.” He pushed half of his Skittles into the pot. “I raise.”

  The rest of the Marines hooted and hollered. Charlie wrinkled his forehead and said, “I don’t get it.”

  Del Arroz threw his own hand in with a look of disgust, then clutched his chest in a mock heart attack. “Chuck, my man, he’s talking about Mattis, bro.”

  They were speaking English, but Charlie would have been lying if he said he understood the reference. He matched Rogneby’s bet. “Call. Eights full of aces. Who are we talking about?”

  Lance Corporal Conrad Ray folded and rolled his eyes. “He’s talking about General Mattis. He was Secretary of Defense when the wave hit. Tom, why the hell would Mattis be in the courtyard? There’s probably a bunker nicer than a damn Hilton under there.”

  “Nah, it was him, dude. Mattis wouldn’t hide in some stinkin’ hole.” Rogneby shrugged. “Hey, what’s SecDef in the continuity of government? Sixth or seventh? Maybe he found out he was President and headed out to take care of business.”

  “Something like that,” Corporal Sam Robb said. “Read it and weep, fairies. Quad fives.”

  “You stacked that shit,” Del Arroz accused.

  “Who, me? Maybe you just suck at cards. Here, let Chuck deal.”

  Charlie shuffled awkwardly at first, but the motions came back to him, and he went through the deck an extra time or two. He proffered it to Del Arroz to cut and winked. “Want to cut? Just so you don’t think I stacked it.”

  The Marines laughed. Del Arroz tapped the top. “Shut up and deal, Chuck.”

  Charlie grinned and started passing out cards.

  “How about you, Chuck?” Ray chimed in. “You got any good stories?”

  He thought about it for a moment while he finished dealing. “Not off the top of my head. I was on a salvage crew. So I saw… a lot of up close and personal endings, you know?”

  The squad considered that for a moment before Rogneby commented, “Well, that’s just fucking depressing.”

  Charlie laughed with the rest of them. “What can I say? I spent most of the last eight years living in the middle of a cornfield.”

  “Del Arroz took out Kate Upton,” Ray said with a grin. “True story.”

  “Oh, here we go,” the other Marine said with a sigh. “This again.”

  “Well, hey, I mean, it looked like Kate Upton.” He shrugged. “She was wearing a bikini, so it wasn’t like we could check her passport.” Ray held his hands up in front of his chest in pantomime. “But, uh, you know. She had some credentials if you know what I mean.”

  Charlie held back his laugh and nodded in mock-seriousness. “Not a whole lot of bikini shamblers in the Midwest. So at least you’ve got that going for you.”

  “Shamblers?” Robb made a face. “Man, even your terminology is wack. Zulus, bro. Zulus.”

  “Couple hundred people in our settlement. Maybe twenty different names. Everybody’s got their thing.” Charlie said. “I think I could get down with zulus.”

  “Brass came down on ‘zombie’ with both boots, so we had to work around it. We all know what’s up, though.”

  Del Arroz glanced at his watch. “Need to wrap it up soon, gents. We’re rolling out at 0700.”

  “Scuttlebutt is, we’re heading to the West Coast,” Corporal Robb said. “That accurate, Sarge?”

  “You’ll get the briefing same time as I do, but that’s what I’ve heard,” Del Arroz said blithely. “Why?”

  “Lots of celebrities in California. You might get a chance to add to your hall of fame.”

  March 13, 2026

  Camp Perry, Ohio

  Z-Day + 3,068

  The morning dawned crisp and cool as Pete stepped out onto the airfield. His ruck was full almost to bursting. The heavy rifle slung over his shoulder didn’t help matters, but there wasn’t a bit of it he’d leave behind.

  The crates and pallets of supplies had plenty of issue carbines to choose from, but there weren’t any weapons like his. In the years after the outbreak, Pete had spent much of his time looking over the survivors’ settlement from an observation post they’d built atop one of his grain bins. The other survivors had dubbed it the Crow’s Nest, and he’d never fought the appellation. More often than not, he’d stayed up there, peering through the scope of this very rifle—a Savage bolt-action chambered in .338 Lapua. Before the wall breach, he’d been able to down zombies well before they reached the fences. The height from which he fired, and the suppressor attached to the end of the barrel muffled the otherwise overwhelming boom of the massive cartridge. Over the years that height had become a soothing balm to Pete, and he’d spent more time aloft than below. The small group of teenagers he instructed in the ways of long-distance shooting were plenty of company. The hundreds of people down below lived in too tight of quarters for his taste.

  In the end, the observation post had been for naught. The zombies had breached the perimeter, forcing him to lead the defense of his home from the ground that he’d avoided—ironically enough—like the plague.

  As he stood and
watched at the edge of the tarmac, troops bustled around the airfield. A quartet of Black Hawks stood ready, while a swarm of crew chiefs inspected and reinspected all the systems. It was a short flight, but it would be a cold swim if something failed. Three of the choppers would carry the men out to the ship, while the fourth would be carrying all the equipment needed for twenty Marines, two Navy SEALs, and a handful of others.

  Considering the gravity of their mission, it wasn’t a lot. But it was all that command could spare. Rather than give in to disappointment that he didn’t have more, Pete decided it was best to be grateful for what they did have.

  After all, we don’t have to walk to California.

  The scuff of boots on blacktop told him someone was near. He turned and froze in momentary inaction as he recognized General Vincent. It was typical in the field to refrain from saluting superiors to avoid giving snipers a target to home in on. Their current enemy hadn’t shown the ability to use firearms. So far.

  The general picked up the dueling inclinations in Pete’s frame and grinned. “Relax, Major. The infected aren’t shooting us but we’ve had to deal with more than our fair share of living enemies over the years. I appreciate you not putting a target on my back.”

  Pete relaxed. “Yes, sir. I appreciate the understanding.”

  Vincent shrugged. “We’ve done our best to keep discipline up over the years, but I’d be lying if I told you that some of the polish wasn’t worn off.” He crossed his arms and regarded the preparations. “We’re not fit for drill or inspection, but no one can say we aren’t hardcore zombie slayers.”

  Pete raised an eyebrow. “I heard some scuttlebutt that the senior staff didn’t like the Z-word, General.”

  “CDC can give all the scientific explanations they want. I’m not crazy enough to deny what my own eyes tell me. We don’t broadcast it to the men, but we’ve had plenty of debates on the subject. When you get back, we’ll hit the officer’s club and you can expand our horizons a bit.”