“Copy that,” replied Heidi. “Cade. You there?”
Nothing.
“Come in, Cade. You have anything new for me?”
Still nothing.
Breaking the silence, Lev said, “Me and Chief are a mile east of the compound. Bagged a mule deer but we’ll leave it and beat feet to the clearing. Be listening in for updates. Over and out.”
“Good copy,” said Heidi, ending the call. She looked up at the container roof and sighed loudly. Lev asking for information that she couldn’t provide had left her feeling hog tied. Cade not answering her repeated calls was beginning to piss her off. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, she waited another full minute and when she’d not heard a peep from him, nor anyone else, she set the Motorola aside, swiveled her chair towards the partitioned flat screen and spewed a string of expletives under her breath. Still wondering why Phillip—who was never at a loss for words—hadn’t responded yet, she settled her gaze on the upper right panel showing the area near the concealed gate where she had just watched him seeing Jenkins off. The Tahoe’s bulk was no longer filling up the screen and the thin forty-something was also out of frame, no doubt still hiking back up to his hide overlooking the road. In the lower left rectangular partition, the camera trained on the clearing picked up only the gentle wave-like movement of an early fall zephyr coursing through the sun-splashed grass. And sitting there, small and silent and inert in the background, was the gold and navy blue DHS Black Hawk. The other panel showed the smattering of gore-streaked pick-up trucks and SUVs sitting in the motor pool, but no rotters. Heidi returned her gaze full circle and studied the front gate feed again. Where are you, Phillip, she thought. And just as she was about to pick up the radio and try to raise him it crackled to life, he said, “Phil here. Jenkins is gone and the gate, fence, and road are clear of rotters.”
“Roger that,” said Cade.
Bastard, thought Heidi. She kept her eyes glued to the monitor and didn’t bother acknowledging either of the men. What’s the use? Shaking her head, she shoved the Motorola across the desktop and it shot off the edge and clattered to the floor.
A beat later Brook and Raven appeared in Heidi’s side vision, moving left to right behind her, a hint of carrion-tinged air trailing them. In passing, Brook asked, “Did you call everyone back to the compound?”
As if she’d just been asked the stupidest question in the history of the world, Heidi smirked and answered with a nod. See how you like the silent treatment, she thought to herself as she watched two-thirds of the Grayson family disappear around the corner.
***
With the strange one sided interaction with Heidi on her mind, Brook burst through the door to the Graysons’ spartanly appointed quarters and, with a brisk tug of the dangling string, clicked the single light bulb to life. Under the gently swaying cone of diffuse yellow light she maneuvered Raven to the nearest low slung bunk and, after getting the girl’s full attention, ordered her to remain in the compound until either her or Cade or one of the other survivors came for her. Told her in no uncertain terms to stay away from the front entrance and if a problem arose she was to get out via the emergency escape tunnel hidden behind a false wall fronted by a phalanx of plastic five-gallon buckets in back of the dry storage area. Then Brook had Raven repeat, verbatim, what she’d just said and made doubly sure the diminutive twelve-year-old was clear on how to get to their family’s pre-arranged rendezvous site.
Once she’d repeated every detail to her mom’s satisfaction, Raven cocked her head and thrust out her arms.
Satisfied that her girl was in a right frame of mind, Brook wrapped her up in a tight embrace. Held her for a ten count then rounded up the lightweight Ruger 10/22, confirmed that the safety was engaged, and placed the rifle across her daughter’s slender knees. Finally, flashing a tight smile and with her own stubby carbine in hand, Brook strode purposefully out the door, closing it firmly behind her.
With the possible finality of their parting driven home by the metallic clang echoing in her wake, Brook passed ghost-like behind a preoccupied Heidi, transited the T and, just as her eyes began to mist, entered the darkened entry foyer. A pained smile tugging the corners of her mouth, Brook thought glumly, Mission accomplished. In light of the circumstances, which up to now she had been treating as a worst case scenario, that she’d successfully adhered to her own self-imposed edict to not cry in front of Raven was monumental to say the least. To remain stoic, and, childhood and lost innocence be damned, begin forging the girl into the weapon she must be in order to survive her tween years was her and Cade’s unspoken common goal. So tears, they had concluded, must be shed away from the impressionable girl. Teaching her it was acceptable to wear her emotions on her sleeve, Cade had said during a private moment, was tacitly setting her up for failure. Unknowingly conditioning her ever so slightly that one day in the future emotion might win out over practicality thus giving her a reason to give up in the face of adversity. Hard as it had been for Brook to implement the doctrine herself, ever since Cade’s mission north to retrieve President Valerie Clay’s stolen nukes she had, so far, successfully kept a week’s long streak intact.
But the prospect of losing the newfound normalcy this little slice of heaven nestled in the glacier-carved valley in rural Utah now provided was too much for Brook to bear.
So with hot tears painting silver rivulets down both cheeks, she choked back a sob, closed the outer door and locked it with the supposedly zombie-proof mechanism Chief had devised, and pressed the Motorola to her lips.
***
Shattering the still, like some kind of military Klaxon in the confined space, one of the Thuraya sat-phones screamed for attention. Heidi plucked the offending device off the shelf, glanced at the display and let it finish ringing. He’s not answering, she thought to herself as the LCD screen went dark. Then she replaced the phone on the shelf and said under her breath, “And I sure as hell ain’t nobody’s secretary.”
As if in response, taken more like an accusatory retort in her troubled mind, the sat-phone emitted a soft beep and the green LED transitioned from the usual heartbeat-like rhythm to a more urgent attention-getting strobe.
Chapter 10
For Glenda, making the initial incision went much better than performing the coup de grace. In fact, Louie’s eye had proven harder to puncture than the skin above his navel and, hard as it was for Glenda to fathom, due to gravity and three weeks in a supine position there was very little blood. Just like she’d done hundreds of times when wrapping presents for her kids and grandkids, she opened the scissors a few degrees and inserted the lower blade just under the pallid dermis and let the upper blade remain outside the body. With a little forward pressure the sharp edge rode just underneath the skin and, like cutting a sheet of wrapping paper, she opened Louie up from navel to sternum. The sucking sound she was expecting didn’t happen. There was little of what decades of watching horror flicks had conditioned her to expect. A writhing mass of milky guts didn’t burst forth, showering her with bile. The full scope of what she was trying to do didn’t hit her fully until she snipped through the atrophied muscles and sinew and got her first glimpse of her beloved’s inert internal organs.
Grimacing from the stench that even three weeks cooped up with the living corpse had failed to prepare her for, she reached a gloved hand inside the puckered opening, rooted in the cavity, and came out with a slimy rope of intestine. Not stopping there, she punctured the thin membrane and slathered a handful of its rotten contents over the entire front of her bathrobe. On the verge of retching, she cut free a three-foot length with the scissors and whipped it over each shoulder a couple of times, adding a matching coating of blackish sludge to the back of her robe. And as she did so she imagined that to a casual observer, her actions could have easily been mistaken for self-flagellation.
“I’m sorry, Louie,” she said during a silent lull between wet slaps. “It’s the only way.” She looked away from his unmoving corpse and settle
d her gaze on the cherry wood bureau. There on its flat top, stuck fast in colorful pools of hardened candle wax, was her entire perfume bottle collection. Mixed in among the candle nubs and onion-dome-like bottles were at least a dozen photographs of the couple, both alive, enjoying happier times.
On the wall next to the bureau was an old full length dressing mirror in a dark wood frame. The thin film of polished metal was cracking and fading around the edges, but Glenda still got a good look at her own self staring back—and it hardly resembled the Glenda of forty days ago. After the initial sudden start, she dropped the intestine to the floor and walked slowly towards the mirror, eyes locked with those staring back. She cast her eyes down and spun a slow circle, taking in the awful sight of the detritus splashed bathrobe. Perfect.
Chapter 11
Five minutes after entering the trees Cade located the source of the stench. Using pre-arranged hand signals he motioned Wilson and Taryn over. Then, with knife-edged branches dragging against his exposed skin, he led them through the undergrowth and just as they stepped into a clearing where two beaten game trails converged, there came a distinct and instantly recognizable noise, like brittle leaves skittering across concrete.
“Zs,” mouthed Cade, nodding in the direction of the sound. Having them follow he stepped quietly from the bushes and padded down the foot-wide strip of beaten earth. When he stopped and Wilson and Taryn formed up, the latter mouthed, “How many?”
Quietly, Cade said, “Seven.”.
Taryn pressed close and in a stage whisper asked, “So how’d they get over the fence?”
“On the backs of the others, I’d be willing to bet,” answered Cade before dragging a finger across his neck, universal semaphore implying he was done with the Q and A session. In the next instant a low rumbling guttural sound came from the direction of the rasps, rising above them for a second before dissipating and then starting anew. Cade stopped abruptly and pressed tight against a towering fir, using the substantial girth of its trunk for cover.
Doing the same behind a pair of smaller trunked deciduous trees, nearly skeletal, their ochre and yellow insect-ravaged leaves thick underfoot, Taryn and Wilson simultaneously brought their Beretta pistols to bear on the interlopers.
The source of the out-of-place noise, just short of the interwoven barbed wire barrier, teeth bared and hackles up, Max stood his ground, warily eyeing the wavering corpses.
Crouched down and reaching between the tightly strung barbed wire, an obvious first turn, its skin pale and taut over an emaciated frame, pawed at the growling animal.
“Good boy, Max,” said Cade, imparting an unnatural, almost cheery tone to his voice that conflicted with the strange sight.
Looking on, Taryn couldn’t help but smile. It was as if Max had led them all to a pond full of mallards, not a clutch of festering zombies, half of them impaled on the randomly placed sharpened stakes that, at Daymon’s insistence, had been added to the newly erected fence.
In unison the creature’s vacuous eyes swung up from Max who must have just beaten Cade and the Kids there. Then the seven pair of jaundiced orbs fixated unblinkingly on Cade as he stepped from cover. Throwing a shudder, the usually unflappable former Delta operator noted the laser-like intensity in them and how, seemingly in the reptile part of their brain, he was already in their clutches, the marrow being sucked slowly from his bones. He set the M4 aside and drew his black Gerber from its sheath. In his side vision he saw Taryn and Wilson holstering their pistols.
In the next moment Wilson produced a six-inch Kershaw lock blade and fanned out left, while Taryn, who’d acted a little bit quicker, approached the jostling Zs dead on, Cold Steel blade held on a flat plane, outstretched at eye level with what, at this stage in the zombie apocalypse, she considered a rare find. Because, like her, thought Taryn, to have lasted this long, the newly turned female must have been a gritty survivor in her past life. Late teens or early twenties, she guessed, before taking into account the nearly dozen piercings ringing both ears plus the thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of elaborate ink work which—though Taryn was loathe to admit—easily trumped hers in quality and surface coverage. A tick later, after processing all of the clues in front of her, Taryn concluded that the floral sleeve tattoos, fully colored and vibrant on the alabaster skin, was way too much chair time for someone just north of eighteen to have endured.
Crawling green stems adorned with like-colored thorns and lipstick red pedals rippled atop the dead woman’s pallid arms, which were thrust through the fence in a feeble attempt to get ahold of Taryn’s tight fitting camo top. Just out of range of the Z’s kneading fingers, Taryn watched its eyes follow the squared-off tip of her black tanto-shaped blade, then, rather comically, cross just before she rammed it home. As the thing’s arms went limp Taryn pushed off of her back foot with enough force to send the tatted Z toppling backwards. And as it hinged over there was a ripping sound and Taryn saw, stuck fast to the rusty barbs, the white roundel and black fabric scraps of a vintage Ramones tee shirt.
The rasps suddenly increased and Wilson returned his attention from Taryn’s first kill to the pair in front of him. Cadaver number one was draped over the fence—pushed there by the other or acting on its own accord, Wilson didn’t care to know. He wanted the things dead and gone and the only way that was going to happen was up close and personal. Shirt hiked up and covering his nose, he made it to the fence at about the same instant rotter number two was ramping up the first one’s back.
Like a fish breaking the surface the rotter powered over the other, twisted its upper torso and hinged sideways onto the uppermost barbed wire strand, the added weight stretching it downward. After a clumsy pirouette that seemed to play out in slow motion the male cadaver pitched forward and struck the ground face first with a hollow thud. Needles bounced and leaves were disturbed by the impact, but Wilson ignored the writhing wreck and, like some kind of fencing move he’d seen on the Summer Olympics, lunged forward, burying the shiny blade to the handle in the first rotter’s bald pate. He heard the grate of honed steel against bone then a wet squelch as the corpse went slack against the wire.
Similar sounds were coming from Wilson’s right flank but he had no time to check Taryn’s progress, and knowing that Captain America was on her right and had probably already filleted his fair share of zombies without breaking a sweat, there was no need.
So he yanked his Kershaw free and, sidestepping the resulting blood spurt and patter of wet gray matter, hauled back and sent one of his steel-toed boots hurtling forward in a shallow arc on a collision course with the prone Z’s exposed temple. A split second before impact a thought crossed his mind. Either he was about to land a bone crunching death blow or he would miss entirely and look like Charlie Brown duped yet again by his nemesis.
Thankfully, but with unintended consequence, the former came to fruition. Upon impact a live wire shiver coursed up Wilson’s tibia and fibula, shot through his femur—the biggest bone in the human body—and like they were components of a desk top kinetic sculpture, set his testicles crashing violently against each other. The resulting nausea doubled him over and, as he watched the semi-aware rotter go limp and crash to the forest floor, horizontal, its skull a miasma of tattered flesh and crushed bone, he caught sight of his lover making quick economical thrusts with her black blade.
***
Max’s barking caught Brook’s attention and by the time she had crossed the clearing he was waiting for her, stubby tail twitching, a knowing tilt to his head. After yawning widely the multicolored Shepherd spun a one-eighty and padded into the forest, undoubtedly taking her to Cade.
***
A short while later, after performing some bushwhacking of her own, she heard the distinct sound of a first turn carrying over the top of muffled voices. She snugged her carbine to her shoulder, slowed her pace, and made every effort to slip through the brush ninja-quiet. She’d only traveled a few more paces towards the commotion when the voices became recogn
izable. And a few short steps after that the beaten game trail spilled into the tiny clearing near the inner perimeter fence, where she saw Cade, Taryn, and Wilson milling about a scene of utter carnage.
She greeted the trio and surveyed the aftermath. To her left was a middle-aged male rotter that had inexplicably gotten over the fence and now lay face down, its skull wildly misshapen and leaking black blood and viscous spinal fluid. Hanging on the fence nearby was another male first turn, scrambled brains oozed from a small slit in the center of its bald head. Blood had pooled shiny and black on the leaves near its feet and, adding to the spreading puddle, slender, saliva-like strands dripped from its open maw. On the opposite side of the loosely strung wire fence were five more corpses. Three lay on the ground, arms and legs askew, each with a gaping hole where an eye had been. Pathetically, the other two Zs which were the source of the dry rasps were stuck fast on sharpened stakes jutting from the ground. They hissed and reached for Max as they marched in place, their bare feet digging shallow furrows into the dirt.
Looking at Cade who was sitting a dozen feet away, back propped against a tree, Brook said, “You going to finish the job?”
“Let’s wait a minute and see if they have any undead friends roving around between the wire. Then we’ll cross over and take care of these two and see how they got here.”
Rocking her head side-to-side as if to say Six of one, half a dozen of another, Brook made her way past Taryn and Wilson who, so engrossed in each other, had barely noticed her arrival. She sat down hard on the ground next to Cade and nodded at the pair of wire-scaling Zs. “Those two your doing?” she asked.
“No. They’re Wilson’s kills,” said Cade. He finished cleaning his blade and slid it in its sheath. Then, squinting against a bar of light infiltrating the forest canopy, he looked up at Brook and added softly, “I put down the naked woman there.” He paused for a second, felt Brook’s eyes boring into him, and also claimed as his the undead little girl crumpled in the dirt near the naked corpse. He threw a shiver at the sight of her. The one-eyed stare, alabaster skin and dainty hands and feet made her look more like one of Raven’s old American Girl dolls than a twice-dead toddler.
Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 5