He looked up as Homer looked down.
It was Luther. His mean, beady eyes went wide – and his hand went to his belt as he fumbled to get a knife clear.
For just one heartbeat, Homer toyed with the idea of grabbing him by the vest, hauling him out, and throwing him off the truck, but then laughed at his own theatricality.
That’s the kind of stunt Predator would pull, he thought.
Also, there was no need for it. Instead he simply stabbed two fingers into the man’s brachial plexus nerve beside his collar bone and applied pressure. The pain caused Luther to forget the whole pulling-a-knife plan. And because this was a directional pressure-point technique, it allowed Homer to shove him all the way back down inside.
“Sorry, friend,” Homer said as the man disappeared.
And then he dropped the flashbang in after him.
This time with the pin removed, and the spoon popped.
Then he rolled onto his back, curled forward into a crouch on the hood – and saw the Ford was now a good ten feet away.
Too far to jump. Crap.
“Sarah! Closer, please – now!”
The Ford’s brakes locked up again, this time causing the Bearcat to slam into its rear end, the force of the impact sending Homer involuntarily hurtling through open air – right into the wide-open back of the Explorer. Rolling and banging into piled-up supplies, fighting to get his breath back, and looking back to see the Bearcat still on top of them, he said:
“Farther now – and also quickly, please.”
Sarah gunned it, and they pulled away, stretching out the distance. Homer got himself composed and grabbed onto something in time to see every window in the armored truck behind them go atomic-fireball white, the light show dwarfing the mounted spots, sparks shooting out the firing ports and the turret up top, arcing away into the sky.
Thinking about it, Homer had expected them to respond to getting flash-banged in a tightly enclosed space by rolling the vehicle to a slow stop, or maybe braking it to a more sudden one, and then executing an amusing Chinese fire drill, with a lot of smoke billowing out after them. But instead, the truck accelerated madly – for two seconds.
And then the front wheels turned sharply.
And the nine-ton vehicle, even with its high center of gravity, did something Homer hadn’t predicted.
It rolled over.
It only rolled once, crashing onto its left side, which then scraped down the blacktop at 60mph, launching 20-foot sheets of sparks in its wake like pyrotechnic big surf… until it finally slid off the road and wrapped several trees around itself.
Then it was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
Fallen Angels
And disappearing into Sarah and Homer’s wake behind them.
At nearly the same time, the forests to either side, which had started falling away without them noticing, melted away entirely, and they emerged out into flat pastureland. Aside from the sky being open above them, there was also more moon- and starlight. The heavens had cleared while they were cocooned inside the diseased womb of that forest.
On the downside, by the time Homer climbed back up front, there was smoke pouring out of the engine – impossible to miss, as it rolled over the hood, through the missing windshield, and straight in their faces. Sarah coughed and waved her hand.
“Yeah,” Homer agreed. “Don’t suppose you flubbed the timing belt install.”
“Nope. Which means—”
“Yep. Some part of the cooling system took a round. Bad luck. But it’s not urgent. We should be able to drive on it a while. Until we’re away from built-up areas.”
“I think we’re there.” Sarah gestured at the rolling fields.
“Good point.”
She shook her head. “Man. The whole point of this vehicle was reliability. And yet it just keeps falling to pieces.”
Homer arched his eyebrows at her. “Want to go back for the Bearcat? That thing definitely runs on diesel.”
Sarah laughed. “Sure. You rock it back up on four wheels.”
“While you take care of the surviving occupants.”
She laughed again. “Okay, never mind. We’ll fix the damned cooling system. But, listen, I wonder if maybe you should be doing the night driving. Since you can see in the dark and all.”
“I’ve been trying to save the limited power for the NVGs.”
“I can understand that. At the same, time if we— fuuuck!!”
She yanked the wheel and swerved right – but too late. The front left tire rocketed over something big, sharp, and mean in the middle of the road – and the tire made a sound like a large-caliber rifle shot, followed by violent flapping, as the truck hauled like a bucking stallion to the left, trying to drag them off the road. They were having a blowout – which in an SUV like this meant significant danger of a rollover.
And Homer hadn’t even had time to put his seatbelt on.
* * *
But Sarah reacted perfectly. She kept her grip on the shuddering wheel, kept her foot off the brake, and just let their speed bleed away – while she kept them, somehow, between the ditches.
“Ordinarily,” she said, “I’d put on the hazard lights now.”
“Ordinarily, the dead wouldn’t be walking the Earth.”
“That’s funny.”
“Can’t take credit. Juice used to say it.”
“I liked him.” Sarah looked at him across the dark cab, her smile bleeding away. “You’ll see him again, you know.”
“I do know.” He didn’t add: In this life or the next. Instead he just pointed at a big dark shape across a field to their right. It was the only man-made structure in sight. And, in the improved nighttime illum, its shape was unmistakable.
Sarah followed his finger. “Living the cliché, huh – holing up in a barn overnight.”
“Not overnight. Just long enough to make repairs.”
Sarah sighed. “It was probably inevitable. Northern Ohio’s got virtually nothing but farms.”
“Also heavily armed survivors,” Homer added. “Evidently.”
“That was also probably inevitable. But hopefully no heavily armed farmers inside the barn.”
Homer nodded. “Or farmers’ daughters. Think you can limp us closer? Maybe two hundred meters out?”
“No problem.”
* * *
Four minutes later, they had rumbled haltingly down a dirt road between the rows of dried corn husks, which had ripened but never been harvested, and emerged again within sight of the barn.
“Perfect,” Homer said. He climbed out and leaned over the roof with his rifle and NVGs.
“Presume you’re going to go in and clear it,” Sarah whispered, huddling down into her seat. It was getting colder.
“No,” Homer said, voice low. “I can already see it’s not clear.”
Now Sarah climbed out, and peered over the dead corn.
“See that?” he whispered. “Right in front of the doors.”
Even without NVGs, Sarah could make it out – a lone figure, as if standing watch. But it was slouching badly, one shoulder low, standing in that uncomfortable position the dead liked.
“It’s gone dormant,” Sarah breathed.
Homer just nodded and took aim. Every round was precious now. But, then again, so were their necks, and also more irreplaceable. And this was a shot he couldn’t miss. He took it.
The figure didn’t drop. It didn’t react at all.
“That’s weird,” Homer whispered.
“Did you miss?” Sarah asked. “Okay, dumb question.” Then she saw him shaking slightly – with laughter. “What?”
“Take another look,” he said. “Those aren’t ribs sticking out.”
She squinted at it. “No. It’s straw. Fucking zombie scarecrow.”
Homer climbed down. “Someone was protecting this place.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “But protecting it from other survivors. That thing sure wouldn’t keep the dead away.”
* * *
But they weren’t still inside. Whoever had made the un-undead guardian of the barn was long gone. Ten minutes later, Homer had thoroughly cleared the structure – all four exterior sides, the big open interior, even the hay loft.
Finally he guided Sarah in, as she drove the truck quietly through the big double doors, which he’d opened for her. When he closed them again, they were consolidated, all tucked up.
Sarah opened the driver’s-side door to exit – and when she did, the dome light in the cabin came on. It had been disabled the entire trip before this, sensibly. Homer raised an eyebrow, but didn’t protest. They were nearly completely shielded inside here. And they were going to need a little light to work by. It was also more pleasant not to stand around in total darkness.
Hauling her rifle out, Sarah said, “They’re illegal in Canada.”
“What – barns?” He placed his helmet and rifle on a hay bale.
Sarah smiled. “No. Suppressors. Silencers. Even in Michigan, you need ATF authorization – which I couldn’t get because I’m not a US citizen. That’s why my weapons aren’t suppressed. As to how I lived this long… no idea, mate. No idea.”
“Here,” Homer said, unstrapping his SIG in its holster, the long suppressor sticking out through the open bottom, and handing it over. “We’ll switch.”
“You sure?”
Homer nodded. “This way we each have one suppressed weapon. We’ll both live longer.” They also swapped spare mags.
Sarah removed the SIG and regarded the two-inch EOTech Mini holographic site mounted on the rear of the slide. “I’ll definitely live longer, since I can’t miss – just put the red dot on the target and squeeze the trigger.” She pulled on the slide to chamber-check the weapon, and smiled. “Neither of our pistols has a manual safety. Internals only.”
“Yep,” Homer said, clipping the Glock on his belt. “Don’t know about you, but I want mine to go bang when I squeeze the trigger.”
“Otherwise you keep your damned finger off it.”
“Exactly.”
She stepped past him and regarded his rifle where he’d laid it. “May I?” He nodded, so she picked it up, keeping her finger off the trigger. “My God, this thing’s light. You really are out of ammo.”
Homer just laughed quietly.
She felt the black, pebbled texture of the pistol grip, as well as on the hand grip beneath the barrel rail, and a bit of the cut-out extensible stock. The rest of the chassis was a dark-dirt color, and felt like expensively brushed aluminum. “DD18,” she read off the upper receiver, just above her right thumb. “Obviously an AR platform. But I’ve never heard of it.”
“Daniel Defense,” Homer answered. “Boutique arms manufacturer, and a great engineering shop. Their guns got popular with Tier-1 guys, then filtered out to the rest of SOCOM, a little before the end. Not everyone on my team stuck with them, but this one, the MK18, works well for me.”
“Why?” she asked, looking up from the sleek weapon.
“Well, for starters, it’s indestructible, and beyond reliable, both of which have to be a given for us. But the cold-hammer-forged barrel also means the accuracy is spectacular. The light weight does cause a little more recoil – and the ten-inch barrel means you pay a price in muzzle velocity. But it’s still enough to reach out to three hundred meters with terminal efficiency, as long as your ammo choice is good. If you regularly push out past that range and hope for good wounding ballistics, the MK18 is not your gun. It’s an assaulter’s weapon.”
“And you’re an assaulter,” Sarah said.
“I’m sniper-qualified, like most team guys. Assaulter, sniper, breacher, these are just qualifications, jobs you might do on a given night – not a label for life. But, yeah, in my heart, the assaulter role is the one I embrace. And that’s the real advantage of the weight and size of this rifle, and what’s priceless to me about it: how maneuverable and balanced it feels. It’s easy to manipulate in tight corners and indoors – the perfect gun for short-range work.”
Sarah regarded the compact boxy device attached to the barrel on its rail system. “Aiming laser?”
Homer nodded. “AN/PEQ-15. It has a red aiming laser, but also an infrared one, visible only in NVGs. Also an IR illuminator – basically an infrared flashlight, to light up the world in NVGs.”
Sarah raised it to her shoulder, and whistled out loud. “I see what you mean about the feel. It’s a beautiful weapon.”
Homer shrugged. “Yes. It’s a gorgeous little artifact, a wonderful piece of design. I just keep hoping one day we’ll live in a world where nobody needs guns. It keeps not happening. Anyway, for now, in this fallen world, a great weapon is necessary, but not sufficient. And the clever toys and accessories are helpful. But as Ali never gets tired of saying: It’s always the violinist, never the violin.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said, lowering the weapon. “I’m getting that.” She put the rifle back down, then paused a beat, facing off into the darkness. Finally, she turned and regarded Homer again, his compact figure shadowed in the cone of light from the truck. “Speaking of which – what you did back there…”
“What?”
“The Indiana Jones maneuver. With the flash-bang. That was some pretty impressive stunt-man work.”
Homer laughed. “Can’t say I ever trained for that one.”
“Yet you came up with it. And executed it perfectly.”
Homer shrugged. “You can’t be afraid to think outside the box. And impossibilities only exist until somebody does them. Come on, we’ve got work to do.” He leaned into the truck cab and popped the hood. “You want the tire, or the cooling system?”
“SEALs like flipping over tires, right?”
“I was actually never a big Crossfitter. But okay. Here.” He unslung his assault pack and came out with a thick roll of 100mph tape. “Odds are you’re going to need this.”
Sarah took it, with a shadowed and silent nod.
* * *
“Why don’t you have any grenades of your own? Flash-bang or otherwise.” Sarah, as Homer had predicted, was now wrapping thick black tape around a ragged bullet hole in the Ford’s cooling hose. Inside the engine compartment, she was inches away from him, as he put his weight into the a heavy wrench, levering it against lug nuts on the front-left tire. From there, she noted the absence of explosives on his person.
Homer straightened up, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I had a couple going into Chicago. But, honestly, in zombie warfare, they almost always create bigger problems than they solve.” He gripped the lug wrench again. “And their effect on the living isn’t nice, either.”
But before he resumed shoving, he paused and looked back up at her. “Hey. Sarah. You were right, you know.”
She just smiled with closed lips, her upper body still beneath the raised hood, and kept wrapping. The hose was wedged in a tight area, and it was tricky to get the tape in there.
Homer mistook her silence. “I mean about the survivors. That they couldn’t be trusted.” She still didn’t respond. “You can say ‘I told you so’ if you want.”
Finally, she straightened up. “No. I can’t – and I won’t. You didn’t say it after my quick Autozone stop turned into an extended undead rodeo. And almost got us both killed.”
Homer just nodded.
Her head disappeared into the gloom again. But a last comment floated back out: “We’ll both do better next time.”
Homer nodded once more, as he put his back into the wrench, thinking Sarah might have actually fit in pretty well in the teams. She was definitely right that there was zero point in recrimination – you learned and you moved on. Finally, for him, it was a nice reminder that no one is always right, or always wrong, not all the time – any more than anyone is all good or bad. It was very human to fall into the trap of thinking they were.
We’re all fallen angels, he thought. Suspended halfway betwe
en heaven above and hellfire below, exiled from the Garden – and most of us simply doing the best we can to get through life in this Middle Kingdom. Doing the best we can, with the tools we have.
The last lug, and with it the blown-out tire, finally came free.
Maybe even those guys back at the Winnebago.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Sarah had finished the hose repair, including testing the seal, and now helped Homer rodeo the spare out of the back, from under the scattered supplies. It was actually probably big enough for Crossfit use, and took some rodeoing.
Homer paused as they got it perched on the edge of the gate, and looked up at her. “You knew about those guys within two seconds. How?”
She shrugged. “From being a cop. You figure out pretty quickly when people are up to no good. You just know.”
Homer sighed. “I guess I’ve always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt. Choosing to believe the best about them – until proven otherwise. Ready?” She grabbed the other side of the tire and they hauled it over. It bounced once on the ground, and Homer rolled it around the truck.
As he propped it against the body, from behind him he heard Sarah say, “Just don’t let your faith in people get you killed.”
Over his shoulder, he answered: “My faith’s all I’ve got.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, they had the new tire bolted on. All the repairs were done. And Sarah had closed the door – Homer presumed because they didn’t need the light to work by any more.
But then he heard her crying. Just barely, softly, and obviously working to hide the sound of it. But she didn’t succeed.
“Hey,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling away. “It’s just stress, and exhaustion.” But she turned and sat down on a nearby hay bale in the dark. Homer sat beside her.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Just you and me here.”
Sarah paused long before answering. Finally, she said, “I don’t know. I guess… I’m not sure I know how to live without my family.”
To the best of Homer’s recollection, she’d had pretty conflicted feelings about her family, especially her job taking care of them. But it sure wasn’t his place to say so. And, anyway, he figured most people have been in life situations they don’t like – but still get so used to them they have no idea how to cope in another one. Instead of bringing any of that up, he just said:
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