by Bobby Adair
Click.
The noise didn’t come from the car. I looked to my right, at the double door entrance at the end of the garage.
“Oh.”
It clicked again. Relocking itself, I assumed.
I pressed the button again and the door clicked again. Sweet.
The door’s locking mechanism clicked again as I jammed the most likely-looking key on the ring into the old Mercedes’ door lock. Luck. I hopped in and a few seconds later, cranked the starter and the German engine purred.
Something was actually going right. Hard to believe.
With the headlights off, the agile little car zipped around the curve of the courtyard and crunched loudly on the crushed granite driveway. In seconds, I was rolling down my window and skidding up next to Murphy. His face was as worried as it had been the day we’d stormed into his mother’s house. In a taut voice he said, “No answer. I checked up and down the wall.”
“This is the spot where we came over.” I yanked a three-button garage door opener off the visor and showed it to him. I’ll bet one of these opens the gate.”
The wall on the front side of the house ran in a straight line that paralleled Mt. Bonnell Road. At one corner was the gate near where we’d parked the Humvees. Perpendicular to the front wall, and through the gate, was what I guessed was a long section of the driveway, that ran along the side wall of the property for eight or nine car lengths. That section of the driveway was blocked off from the main compound by another wall. At the far end of that section was an interior gate that matched the gate to the outside.
Murphy ran toward that gate as I drove toward it, pressing button two as I went. I didn’t know how the remote was programmed, but button two made sense. Button one for the exterior gate. Button two for the interior gate. Button three for the garage door. Or vice versa. Either way, two was the answer.
Over the revving engine, I heard the mechanical click from some large piece of machinery. The interior gate started its slow slide open. I killed the engine, pocketed the keys and ran with Murphy through the widening gap.
To my right, as I passed through the gate, I saw a guard shack built into the back wall. Beside that was parked a small black pickup truck. A peek through the shack’s windows revealed that it was empty. Good.
I caught up with Murphy as he ran down the length of the walled gauntlet and I pressed the first, then the third button. Nothing happened.
“Fuck.”
I stopped and looked down at the three-button controller. I pressed button one, then three again.
Murphy stopped and looked at me with eyes full of anxious, silent questions.
Looking back at the door still open behind us, I quickly deduced that the outside door might not open until the interior door was closed. From a security perspective, that made sense. I pressed button two and the interior door started to close. With exaggerated body English I urged the interior gate to close while Murphy ran toward the exterior gate to wait.
Paranoid fucking owners.
But that was a good thing, assuming we could take control of the place.
The interior gate finally locked into place and I tried button one again as I ran toward the outer gate and was rewarded with the metallic sound of the outer gate sliding to the left.
As soon as the gap was wide enough, Murphy squeezed through. I followed him onto the moonlit dirt road between the compound wall and the cedar forest. Once through, I paused and thumbed the remote. As the gate stopped and reversed its motion, Murphy rushed toward the dark shapes of the Humvees parked along the wall.
I waited for the gate to come to a close before proceeding. It wouldn’t do to have any Whites running into the compound while we weren’t looking. Once the sound of the gate’s mechanism silenced, I heard disturbing noises coming out of the darkness up the gravel road: scuffling, shuffling, and sobbing.
Shit.
I ran toward the murky shadows by the Humvees and saw a cluster of black figures struggling in the dark. My rifle was up and I was ready to shoot, but as I drew closer, the details resolved.
What the hell happened?
Chapter 25
“Dammit,” I hissed, as I came in close.
Murphy was engulfing Mandi in his big arms.
Steph lay on the driveway, sobbing and trying to give instructions to Dalhover, who was working at trying to stop the bleeding on her neck, or shoulder, I couldn’t tell.
The other soldier, the guy whose name I’d never learned, lay face down on the caliche in a mess of blood and brains with his feet and legs still in the Humvee.
Kneeling down beside Steph, I asked, “What the fuck?”
Dalhover looked over at me with his permanently sad face and rasped, “Jackson turned and attacked Nurse Leonard.”
I grabbed Steph’s hand and leaned over. She was frightened and hyperventilating. Tears flowed.
She gasped, “I…I…don’t think…it’s bad...We…need…to stop…the…bleeding.”
“We will,” I said as calmly as I could fake. I looked over at Dalhover.
“It’s a nasty bite,” he told me. “Tore off part of the trapezius near her neck. It’s bleeding like crazy, but… I think we can stop it. This is a military first aid kit. The gauze has a coagulant in it.”
“Steph,” I said, leaning over and looking into her panicked eyes, “can we move you inside? Do we risk making it worse?”
She shook her head immediately. “No risk… Move me… Keep…the…pressure on…the…wound.”
“Okay.” I took a microsecond to collect my thoughts and devise a plan. I jumped to my feet and looked around. “Mandi, you come here and keep the pressure on Steph’s wound. Murphy, you pick her up and get in the passenger side of Dalhover’s Humvee. Dalhover, you drive it. I’ll take the first one. You follow me in. Let’s go. Now.”
They all jumped at my command. I ran to the Humvee in front and got into the driver’s seat. I looked back. All the others were getting loaded up. With the engine started, I pulled forward and pressed button number one on the remote. The gate started its slow slide open while Dalhover’s Humvee came up behind me.
Once the gate opened wide enough, I turned right and drove quickly inside, pulling all the way to the end of the gauntlet with Dalhover behind. I pressed button one again and the exterior gate obediently stopped, then reversed direction.
Again, I urged it forward. “C’mon.”
But it didn’t close fast enough.
First one, then two more infected came running through the shrinking gap and pounced on Dalhover’s Humvee.
“God dammit.”
I jumped out, drew my machete, and ran to the back corner of my Humvee. The gap in the door was almost closed. Another infected had just run through. I spotted movement through the gap in the gate. Whites were running through the cedars toward the opening, probably drawn by the noise of the opening and closing.
The time for machetes was past. Time to think clearly.
The Ogre and the Harpy.
There were four in the walled gauntlet and more on the way. I wanted to shoot those running for the door. Getting the door closed with the minimum number of infected inside had to be a priority. An open gate and an unknown number of Whites inbound, were the first ingredients in the recipe for disaster.
But fast moving targets in the dark over seventy feet away were targets I’d likely miss. And once I pulled the trigger, the ones already inside would charge. I only had one choice but I needed to be goddamned quick about it.
I pointed my rifle at the closest of the infected, the one trying to get through Dalhover’s door. He wasn’t more than six feet away. I fired and his chest erupted in a fountain of blood. The two infected on top of the Humvee immediately sprang at me. The female led and fell over the windshield. She spider-crawled across the hood, scraping her knees and palms to blood in her hurry to taste my flesh. She caught two rapidly fired bullets, one in the head, and one through the throat. Without missing a beat in my firing r
hythm, I hit high on my next shot, but the fourth caught the next White in the shoulder, spinning him over the other side of the Humvee.
The running guy was closing fast, but Dalhover swung the Humvee door open at the last second and the running White collided with it and fell. Two shots accompanied by muzzle flashes from behind the door told me that that the infected was dead.
I looked back toward the gate. “Damn.” It had reversed direction after hitting an infected who was down, but struggling through. Apparently a safety feature built into the closing mechanism had reversed it.
I ran toward her, firing as I did.
Bam, bam, bam.
All three shots missed.
I stopped and steadied my gun. She was up and running at me with wild eyes and chomping teeth.
Breathe.
I pulled the trigger again, once, twice. She fell.
I reached into my pocket and fingered the remote again, pressing all the buttons. The gate stopped and reversed again.
I ran toward the closing gap.
I saw two more infected men jump over the big stone blocks that bordered the drive, running at me. I fired again and again and again, four shots at the two runners to get one down, but the gate closed. The last White outside hit the metal gate with a loud bang then went quiet, knocked out by his own anxious stupidity, perhaps.
“Jesus.” I gulped a deep breath and looked around. Dalhover was out of his Humvee and on the other side. He shot two more times and that last wounded White was dead.
I listened. Somewhere out there, I heard the sound of a few infected, screaming. I couldn’t gauge the distance with the walls, but they were few and far enough away that I felt safe for the moment.
Dalhover hurried around the back of his Humvee and checked each body as he went.
“All dead?” I asked as I ran by.
He nodded.
I pressed button two on my remote and the interior gate slid slowly open. I hopped into my Humvee and as soon as the gap was wide enough, I drove in. Once through the gate, the Humvee’s tires chewed up some of the lush green sod as I drove it around the little convertible I’d left on the driveway.
With both Humvees through, I fingered button two, then waited to watch the gate close and stop.
God damn.
With Dalhover behind, I sped up to the courtyard in front of the garage. I slowed once my tires hit the flagstones and I pressed button three. The door on the end of the garage, the furthest from the breezeway, opened and exposed a well-lit empty spot. I pulled in and to my left I saw an old blue mid-sixties Corvette convertible with the top down. To the left of that sat a Tesla.
I jumped out and ran past those two cars and a Bentley, then passed an empty space. At the other end of the garage sat a very shiny Mercedes. It was silver, sleek, and expensive as hell. That much was clear. It was also clear that it wasn’t locked.
I flung the door open and hopped into the driver’s seat, realizing immediately that I didn’t have the keys to start it. I wanted Dalhover’s Humvee in the garage and the Mercedes out, but I had no way to move it. I jumped out of the Mercedes and ran back up to the garage door that I’d left open.
Murphy, carrying Steph, came in with Russell who was glued to Mandi’s side, and Dalhover behind. I pressed the button on my remote and the garage door closed. Then, it was silent except for our labored breathing and Steph’s pained, soft moans. We were safe, but somehow, that concept didn’t sink through to attenuate our need for urgency.
Realizing suddenly that all eyes were on me, I said, “C’mon.” I hurried back toward a pair of double doors at the other end of the garage. They matched the two I’d seen outside, so I deduced that they must open onto the breezeway to the house. Once at the doors, I stopped. There was no knob. Of fucking course, it had no knob. “Really? Every fucking tiny little thing.”
I glanced at the faces of the others. They were expectant, anxious.
Fuck.
I jammed a hand into my pocket and pulled out the old Mercedes keys. The key fob with the other remote. That had to be it. I pressed that button and the door clicked and swung open. As though I’d planned it all along, I held it open and ushered the others through. As we hurried across the breezeway, the door clicked shut behind us.
A very roomy patio was inset into the house at the other end of the breezeway. Flowerpots of every size held tropical plants and flowers. The front door was way oversized compared to any house I’d ever been in. It was constructed out of black iron in an ornate pattern of ivy and flowers, with a sheet of glass behind. It had a large iron handle.
A handle. Thank God.
I pulled on the handle, but it didn’t budge. I tried the key fob again. A welcoming click followed. I pulled on the handle and we all stepped into the immeasurable comfort of an air-conditioned house.
Chapter 26
“Damn,” Murphy muttered.
The entryway was set on a dais four steps above the biggest living room I’d ever seen. It was a vast expanse of light-colored wood floors, modern furniture, stark white walls, and widely dispersed abstract art. The most stunning feature was the two-story wall of windows stretching around the convex curve on the back of the house.
Through the windows, the sky glowed a faint purple along the horizon. The black hills across the river were dotted with the tiny stars of solar-powered landscape lights and occasional fully lit houses. The wide Colorado River shimmered far below in the moonlight and stretched out around a bend heading west and south.
“Wow,” Mandi said.
To our left, a dining room held a very long table that looked to have been sliced vertically from a three-hundred-year-old tree and spanned enough length to seat twenty. To our right, a wide staircase of the same light-colored wood as the rest of the house rose and sank at intricate and unexpected angles like something designed by M. C. Escher.
Somewhere up those stairs, footsteps echoed.
We all shared a look. The house was not empty.
I nodded to Murphy, still with Steph in his arms. He backed into a corner to the left of the door. Mandi did the same. Thankfully, Russell stuck with her. Perhaps he’d tired of my abandoning him.
Dalhover tracked the barrel of his rifle back and forth across all the spaces, keeping an eye out for movement. That left the stairs for me, so I positioned myself at the foot of the staircase and waited.
The clomping footsteps above were awkward, careless, and urgent. It had to be a White, alerted to our presence by the sound of the opening and closing of the door. I reached again for a pistol that wasn’t there, and thought of taking back the one I’d given Steph. She was in no shape to use it.
Too late.
Through the gaps between the steps I saw jeans, a turquoise t-shirt, and white skin. The White was on the stairs. In no time, it tromped down, made its way around the last sharp corner, and howled.
She was a short, stout, Hispanic woman with her black and gray hair pulled back in a bun. She had blood smeared through the wrinkles on her face and down the front of her tent-like t-shirt. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t trip, stumbling and running as she was. Looking past my alabaster skin, she focused on Dalhover and rushed toward him, which made my task easy.
I stepped to the side and as she passed, swinging my machete around and catching her across the back of the neck. My machete, wedged between her vertebrae, was yanked out of my hand when she dropped. I reluctantly let it go, raised my M4, and pointed it up the stairs.
The paralyzed woman struggled to breathe as she bled out at my feet. I listened for more noises in the house, but couldn’t make anything out with the woman’s mouth making dying noises below me.
It stopped.
I glanced down to see Dalhover’s knife sticking out of the side of her head. He was standing back up and raising his weapon. Problem solved.
The relative silence revealed a noise somewhere down the stairs. Dalhover heard it, too. It was a muffled, thumping sound. We listened for a few moment
s longer. The sound wasn’t getting closer. It definitely wasn’t getting farther away. Someone was trapped somewhere below.
“Hey,” I called into the house, hoping to draw any more infected to us.
Still, the muffled thumping from below.
“Hey.” We waited.
I gave it a few more minutes and shouted again, “Hey.”
Nothing but the thumping.
Dalhover quietly told me, “We need to clear the house.”
I nodded my agreement, then looked back at Murphy. “You got this?”
“Yeah.” He laid Steph on the floor and brought his weapon up. Mandi kneeled down beside Steph to keep the pressure on her wound. Russell kneeled beside her. Steph seemed stable, not calm, but not hyperventilating anymore.
I looked at Dalhover with raised eyebrows. Which way first?
Dalhover tilted his head to his left and moved into the dining room. I followed. It was clearly empty, but there was a doorway at the far end, on the right.
Dalhover hurried down one side of the long table. I went down the other. Glancing to my left through the windows, I saw the walled gauntlet we’d driven through and the curved terraces of the lawn. The bodies of the two security guards, the naked woman, and the boy lay down there. But the only movement came from the lawnmowers.
Dalhover stopped against the wall beside the doorway into the kitchen. From across the dining room, I walked forward slowly, scanning across the kitchen in an arc. It was empty. I nodded the all-clear to Dalhover and he jumped through the doorway and down five steps to the kitchen’s tile floor.
I hurried across and joined him.
The under-cabinet lighting gleamed off the stainless steel counter tops and smooth black lacquer cabinets. Dalhover was moving left around the central island and opened a door to a pantry. A light came on automatically as the door swung. From where I stood it appeared to be large, but sparsely stocked.
Dalhover grunted something unintelligible and closed the door. He hurried over to the two refrigerators built side by side into the cabinetry. He opened one, then the other, bathing himself in the glow of the refrigerator lamp. Upon closing the second, he looked at me and his sad eyes turned angry. “Goddamned vegetarians.”