Riker's Apocalypse (Book 3): The Precipice

by Chesser, Shawn

  About five yards past the helicopter was the beginning of the breach in the freeway dividers Shorty had created. Utilizing the EarthRoamer’s bumper-mounted Warn winch, he had displaced three of the ten-foot-long, two-ton concrete Jersey barriers from the miles-long uninterrupted run.

  Flinging the sandwich out the window, Riker raised the two-way radio to his lips and pressed the Talk button.

  Though all of their handheld radios were now tuned to the same channel and sub-channel, Riker singled out Benny by name. “You ready, Sistek?”

  After a short burst of squelch, Benny’s voice came from the tiny speaker: “Ready as I’ll ever be, Riker.”

  Shorty came on next, saying: “I’m good to go.” After a brief pause, he added, “Age before beauty, Lee. Get that big red beast of yours moving.”

  That’s the pot calling the kettle black, thought Riker. For one, Shorty was older by a decade or so. Secondly, the EarthRoamer was not much smaller than the fire engine. Probably cost more, too.

  Just as Riker started his window running up, he heard over the engine noise a woman’s shrill screams. They were coming from somewhere off to the left and behind the engine. It was growing louder and drawing nearer. And while it didn’t sound like the woman was under attack, she sure as hell was trying hard to make it happen. For nothing, in Riker’s experience, excited the dead more than the wailing of the mortally wounded.

  Looking up the embankment, Riker saw a woman. She was running flat out, the long knitted scarf around her neck flapping in her slipstream. She had just made the apex and was on her way downhill toward him when, with maybe fifty feet left to go until she made it to flat ground, a single head broke the crest of the hill behind her.

  As she halved the remaining distance to the highway, arms and legs pumping furiously, Riker realized the thing coming down the hill behind the woman was a Bolt.

  In the split second it took Riker to decide to reach back and open the rear door so the woman could get inside when she arrived, or, on second thought, if she arrived, a half-dozen more pursuers appeared behind her. As the things chasing her crested the embankment, their upper bodies silhouetted against the gray sky, it was evident they were having trouble making the transition—stretched out in a long, ragged Congo line, staggering and slipping, their heads lolling around. Riker had a good feeling he was looking at twenty or more slow movers—or so he hoped.

  The woman running downhill in Riker’s direction was all arms and legs. If she wasn’t as tall as him, she was damn close.

  As the woman dodged the low-scrub clinging to the incline, she tore the scarf from around her neck, letting it fall to the ground behind her.

  Walking his gaze uphill from the woman, Riker saw that the female Bolt was quickly gaining ground on her. The Bolt was lean and muscular, likely mid to upper twenties when she turned. As it careened downhill, everything in its path was secondary to the fresh meat it was pursuing.

  Behind the Bolt, the other dead things were focused solely on the runner, too. Some, their shark-like dead-eyes locked onto the moving target, staggered through the scrub totally oblivious to the ankle-grabbing branches. Obviously excited by the prospect of catching up to the woman, a couple of slow-movers got tripped up by their own feet. Aided by gravity, pale arms and legs batting the air, they tumbled head over heels through the hardy ground cover, dark rooster tails of damp earth erupting in their wake.

  As the young woman crossed the breakdown lane, her long strides eating up the distance to the fire engine, the Bolt’s feet got tangled in the discarded scarf. As the Bolt pitched forward, it didn’t try to arrest the fall by throwing its hands up. No Oh shit! expression altered its slack alabaster face. Its eyes stayed locked on the woman even as its mouth was filling up with dirt.

  After going down hard face-first, its spine bent unnaturally. Dirty soles of both bare feet clearly visible to Riker, he witnessed the pent-up kinetic energy send the contorted body on a hard-to-watch, out-of-control tumble.

  Like a big-mountain skier catching an edge at the beginning of a steep run, the zombie rocketed downhill, completely out of control, going totally airborne, head and feet trading places faster than an Olympic caliber gymnast tumbling her way to Gold.

  Grateful for the stroke of luck, Riker twisted around in his seat and, with his long left arm, opened the door for the woman. As he did so, over the radio, Shorty asked, “What’s the holdup?”

  Ignoring the call, Riker turned his face toward the open window and bellowed, “Get in!”

  Running shoes squeaking on the still-wet pavement, the woman covered the last ten feet to the fire engine in two long strides. Hollering, “Drive, damnit!” she dove for the open door.

  Launching off of one foot on wet ground didn’t deliver the runner the distance she had needed. While she did get her fingers hooked into the mesh cargo pocket on the rear of the driver’s seat, and her upper body part of the way onto the rear passenger seat, her legs, from the knees down, came nowhere close to making it inside the cab.

  Having already acted on the shouted order, Riker matted the pedal and steered toward the break in the freeway dividers.

  Finding herself being dragged outside the accelerating vehicle, and wholly pissed that she had miscalculated her leap, the woman let loose a string of expletives. Hearing this, Riker looked to his side mirror. Seeing the rear door still open and swinging back and forth, with the runner only partway inside and hanging on for dear life, he stabbed the brakes and reached blindly into the backseat area.

  As Riker probed the space behind his seat, hoping to catch hold of the woman’s hand, he flicked his gaze to the side mirror.

  He didn’t like what he saw.

  While the Bolt getting tripped up on the scarf had initially seemed to be the Godsend the fleeing woman had needed at the time, in reality, the ensuing series of somersaults and awkward cartwheels delivered the creature to flat ground much faster than pure bipedal locomotion could have.

  Having reached the asphalt shoulder with one arm clearly broken in multiple places and flopping about like a limp noodle, the lone Bolt rose up and immediately resumed the chase, loping diagonally across the two-lane, the ruined arm in no kind of sync with the other three appendages.

  Finding the woman’s hand by feel, Riker held on tight and tromped down on the gas pedal.

  Slow to respond to the input, the multi-ton rig spent the first second or two lurching and shimmying before finally gathering speed.

  Seeing the woman’s free hand come up and slap down on the seatback, the slender fingers clawing deep divots into the cloth, Riker let go of the steering wheel. Keeping the rig tracking straight by bracing the wheel with his knees, he reached his left arm out his window and closed the crew cab door.

  No sooner had the door thunked shut and the woman released her vice-like grip on Riker’s right hand than a loud bang drew his eyes to the side mirror where he saw reflected back at him the humorous sight of the female Bolt crashing into the fire engine’s rear quarter panel.

  Instantly repulsed—the jarring impact causing the limp, broken arm to whip the air—the Bolt took a few stilted steps backward, then sat down hard on the wet pavement.

  Retaking the wheel in a two-fisted grip, Riker said, “What’s your name?” Feeling a little sheepish at having followed up the woman’s close brush with death with such a mundane greeting, he took his eyes off the road just long enough to meet her gaze in the oversized rearview mirror.

  Instead of answering the question, the woman crawled over the seatback. Once she was in the passenger seat and buckled in, she took a deep breath and stuck out her hand. “I’m Amelia. Friends call me Lia.”

  Riker nodded to indicate the upcoming break in the freeway barrier. Keeping his hands at the proper ten and two on the wheel, he said, “Leland Riker. Pleasure is all mine, but for safety’s sake, the handshake has to wait.”

  Chapter 16

  Reeling in the offered handshake, Lia said, “You’re driving this … through
that?”

  Riker said nothing. He was focused solely on threading the forty-foot-long engine through the thirty-foot-wide opening. While the fire engine’s width and length wasn’t a problem, the angle he had to work with was.

  As the fire engine entered the breach, the helicopter’s drooping rotor blades banged off its light bar, then raked along the ladder apparatus atop the rig, creating a metal-on-metal keen that had the hair on Riker’s arms standing to attention.

  Finally clear of the helicopter, its blades all aquiver, Riker eased the rig into the far lane and stole another quick peek at his side mirror.

  The first wave of slow movers was just reaching the dry patch of pavement in the fast lane where the engine had been parked. The embankment behind them was teeming with zombies, many more than he could possibly count. And closer in, having just used the gap in the Jersey barriers to cross over into the southbound lanes, the female Bolt with the damaged arm was definitely still in the hunt and gaining ground on the lumbering engine.

  Shifting his attention back to the road ahead, Riker spotted the EarthRoamer forming up with the Shelby. Thanks to the unscheduled pause to collect the unexpected guest now occupying the passenger seat, the other two vehicles had opened up a bit of a lead on the engine.

  Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, Riker said, “Where did you pick up your undead posse?”

  Before Lia could answer, the radio came to life; it was Steve-O: “Benny’s driving, so he had me call you. He says that you better make sure the woman you picked up hasn’t been bitten.”

  The radio went quiet again, but the silence was short-lasting because half a beat later another burst of squelch preceded Shorty saying, “And check the chick for weapons first chance you get.”

  As silence returned to the cab, Riker directed his gaze at the woman calling herself Lia. For the first time since he had set eyes on her, she was not a blur of movement. As if one of the infected chasing her had taken up residence in the gloomy footwell, she had drawn her long legs up to her chest and trapped them with her arms.

  The quick once-over told Riker that the twentysomething blonde’s bobbed hair was damp with sweat and that she was dressed in skintight runner’s spandex—top and bottom both black and sporting the Nike swoosh. On her feet were black Nike trail runners.

  Considering the woman’s attire, if she was concealing a bite or had a weapon stashed anywhere on her person, neither would go undetected for long.

  Finally getting around to answering Steve-O, Riker said, “Nothing I can do at the moment. I’ve got my hands full driving this monster.”

  Lia let go of her legs long enough to make a gimme gesture with one hand.

  Riker examined the hand. It was deeply tanned, the skin smooth and unblemished—definitely no bites or scratches. Walking his gaze over her long, toned legs, he couldn’t help but let his eyes linger on the contours of her firm backside. It wasn’t a leer, just an action dictated by some kind of prehistoric instinct buried deep within his brain. Getting to her neck, he noticed the skin there was inflamed. Just a thin raised red line. Like maybe she had a rash. Nothing to be worried about.

  Finally ending the not-so-surreptitious visual recon by looking her straight in the face and matching her blue-eyed gaze, he said, “Where were you headed?”

  Nodding at the radio, she said, “Where are you all headed? Only thing down this way is the county jail, the Sheriff’s station, and a whole lot of open desert.” She paused and looked about the cab. “And why go to all the trouble to steal the fire truck? You planning on breaking someone out, or something?”

  Riker shook his head. “Or something. We were at the jail earlier. Doing a kind of welfare check. Ended up coming across some people trapped on the roof.”

  Lia cocked her head. “People?”

  “The warden and some of her guards.”

  She stretched her legs out, real slow, one at a time, and planted her feet flat on the floorboard. “How do you know they’re not inmates wearing stolen uniforms?”

  “Because that’s not what my gut’s telling me.”

  “My gut’s telling me I just got dropped into the middle of a sausage party. Any women in the other vehicles?”

  Riker shook his head. “I can stop and let you out right here if you want.”

  She shook her head. A hard side to side wag. “I want to get as far away from where you picked me up as possible.”

  Riker said, “You didn’t answer my question. How’d all the zombies get on your trail?”

  Lia looked at the headliner, then said, “I was foraging and came upon a tent city. It was surrounded by Army vehicles. On the side near the embankment, they’d parked a long line of FEMA trailers. That’s where I picked up my posse.”

  “So the authorities are still there and running the place?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Nothing but deaders inside. When I tried to sneak past the front gate one of the things on the outside saw me. Next thing I know they’re all moaning and pressing against the fence.”

  “Then the fence failed.”

  Crossing her arms, Lia said, “Nope … that’s when the Random spotted me. She was about three blocks east at that point.”

  Brow furrowing, Riker said, “Random?”

  “The fast ones. I call them Randoms. She took off chasing me right away.” Lia paused. She bit her lip and looked out over the hood. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably be fighting that bitch to the death right now.”

  Seeing Benny steer the Shelby onto the detention facility’s feeder road, Riker took his foot off the gas pedal. Not familiar with how the fire engine handled, he slowed the behemoth to a walking speed and eased her into the sharp right-hander.

  “So why are you out and about during the day?” he asked. He also wanted to know why she was on foot and unarmed but didn’t want to bombard her with too many questions all at once.

  “I just can’t deal.” She shook her head. Slowly this time. “It’s a long story. You wouldn’t understand.” She drew one foot up onto the seat and began worrying the shoelace with those slender fingers.

  “Try me. Start from the beginning.”

  Staring at the distant jail, Lia said, “I was at a high-elevation running camp when this thing started. When I finally got back to civilization … to Santa Fe, the power was out. No streetlights. No heat in my place. No television to show me what had happened. I wanted to move on but decided not to. I guess I was holding onto hope that the government would get stuff straightened out. Hell, we have the best military in the world, right? They handled the Nazis and the communists, right? So what the fuck? How’d they let it come to this?”

  Riker said, “Governors across the east called up their National Guard units real early. The Four World Trade Center building had been down less than a day when I started to see signs they were losing control of the situation. Battery Park in New York was chaos. Pure madness. Never seen anything like it. Not even in Iraq.”

  Lia said nothing.

  Steering clear of an unmoving corpse splayed out in his lane, Riker asked, “So you only go out during the day? That’s pretty risky to do on foot since the dead hunt mostly by sight. And with no backpack or weapon.”

  “I only go out during the day.” She didn’t address the other questions.

  “Why is that?”

  “About a week ago I got tired of cold soup. I’d been back barely two days and the only water I had left was in the toilet tank. I had used up the last of my batteries and was down to one candle.” She went quiet and stared off into the distance.

  “So something happened to you when you were out and about at night.” Riker was checking the road behind them, so he didn’t see her draw her legs up again and plant her heels on the seat.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. It was clear she was reliving something. Finally, she said, “I was creeping around inside a store by my place and came literally face to face with one of them. I’d seen plenty on my street from
a distance. First time, though, that I’d been that close to one. Coming around a corner and bumping into it in the dark.” She threw a hard shudder. “Feeling that cold cheek coming up against mine”—she made like she was batting a spider web away from her face—“I just about shit myself right then and there.”

  “So it was your first kill.”

  She shook her head. The thousand-yard stare returning, she said, “I screamed like a … girl.” The way she had spit the word “girl” led Riker to believe the strong personality traits she had exhibited so far were not put on. Not some kind of false bravado.

  She wasn’t playing the role of survivor. She was a survivor.

  “So that changed you?”

  “Hell yes, it changed me. I had no flashlight. No weapon. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Damn near got myself killed.”

  “So you only forage during the day, without a pack, and on foot,” Riker said slowly. It was more of a statement than a question. Something about her story seemed way off. Slowing the rig with a tap of the air brakes, he said, “We’re here. Staying in or coming with?”

  After chewing on it for a second or two, she said, “Let me have a quick word with your friends.”

  Knock yourself out, Riker thought, handing her the Motorola. This ought to be fun.

  Suppressing a smile, he said, “Benny’s the blue truck in the lead. Steve-O is riding shotgun with him and was the one who came over the radio first. Shorty’s the one driving the vehicle making the turn right now.”

  Lia lifted the radio to her face. After licking her dry, cracked lips, she pressed the Talk button. “This is the chick Leland just picked up. I haven’t been bit and I am unarmed. That being said, I am not stripping down for anyone. You all are not the TSA, so, no, none of you guys are frisking me and there will be no patting me down over the top of my clothes. You will just have to take my word for it that I’m not going to stab you in the back when you’re not looking.” She paused, radio an inch from her lips, thinking. After a long three-count, she added, “You have my word I won’t turn and come back as a Random. I’ll kill myself first.” She closed the channel and handed the radio over.