“Five minutes, max,” was the answer. “If you want—”
“Forgot it,” Riker shot, cutting Shorty off. “I’ll deal with it.” Before signing off, he relayed the crude details of his hastily hatched plan.
Shorty said, “You sure that’s how you want to do it? Can’t go it alone every time, Lee. You’re not my guardian angel. Why you have to be a helicopter parent to everyone else is a bit baffling to me. Steve-O, your sister … sure, I can accept that. But Benny? Why don’t you have him help you?”
“My mind’s made up,” Riker said. Before Benny, who was able to hear everything said about him on the open channel, could mount a defense, Riker rolled the volume down and pocketed the radio.
Lia said, “Let me tag along. I can watch your back while you’re inside.”
Riker shook his head vigorously. “You stay here and help Vern round up the stuff on the list. Feel free to add anything extra you think you might need. Just tell Vern I’ll give him more gold when I get back.”
She said, “If you come back.”
Riker hung his head in defeat. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. He said, “My plan is solid.”
For the third time in as many minutes, Lia laid a hand on Riker’s shoulder. Looking him in the eye, she said, “You be careful.”
Remaining stone-faced, Riker thought, Isn’t this when the sappy music kicks in and the hero kisses the girl? Out loud, he said, “You’ve seen enough killing and dying for ten lifetimes. Said so yourself a few minutes ago.”
“You better go, then.” She made a shooing motion just as Vern reappeared at the open door.
“Lee,” Vern said, extending his hand.
Riker reciprocated. Lean and wiry, Vern was a head shorter; however, his grip was stronger than his stature would suggest. And in his palm was the gold. He said, “I’m not taking this, Lee.”
No time to argue. Riker pocketed the gold. Casting a furtive glance in the direction of the pet store, he said, “I better go, the deadheads are on the march.”
Vern said, “I was listening. Better go. We’ll get to fulfilling your order.” With that, he led Lia inside and closed and locked the door behind them.
Riker peered inside the spa as he passed it by. It was a mess in there. Bottles of hair care products, some of them leaking pearlescent goop, lay in a jumble on the floor just inside the door. The broken display case was canted to one side and partially blocking the door.
Lying on the floor between what Riker guessed were workstations where the beauticians and customers sat facing each other was a slight Asian woman. She was dead, that was for sure. She wore a wide-eyed expression. Her mouth had frozen open mid-scream—the thin lips, white with blood loss, stretched tight over a picket of mostly straight teeth.
She had ended up on her back, stuck fast to a pool of her own blood, both arms cocked in a defensive posture. The blood had dried long ago and now looked more black than red. It covered a good deal of the floor and seemed to be swallowing up all the light from outside.
The woman’s white smock was torn and blood-spattered and had somehow ended up around her chin. Everything that used to reside inside her narrow chest cavity had been scooped out and was nowhere to be seen. Riker had no doubt he was looking at the work of one or more of the dead things. They were efficient eating machines.
On the woman’s forehead, equidistant between almond-shaped eyes, was a tiny, bloodless hole. The lack of powder burns around the entry wound, and that there was no noticeable exit point, told him she had been put down by a single small-caliber round.
What a way to go, thought Riker. As he pushed on toward the pet store, the only solace he took from the macabre scene was that, unlike Vern’s son Shane, the lady in the spa hadn’t reanimated. Who was responsible for bestowing to her the ultimate gift? The gift of release? Maybe her husband? Perhaps an adult child? Whatever the case, contrary to the impression conveyed by her final death pose, she was at peace now.
Stepping between islands of broken glass dotting the walk-in front of Wags, Riker made his way, as silently as possible, to the sidewalk bordering the mini-mall to the east.
A couple of yards shy of the blind corner, he heard a low, mournful moan coming from the right, from somewhere deep in the bowels of the pet store. It made him think of the wind navigating the upper boughs of tall pines. As the hair on his arms stood to attention, the moan morphed to guttural grunting that was quickly drowned out by the distinct slap, clop, slap, clop of flip-flops striking the floor.
Turning toward the sound, Riker saw a shadowy form trundling down the aisle toward him. As it was hit by the light spilling in the big window, Riker saw the sandy-brown hair “graying a little on the sides.” The mustache “gone a bit gray” was present, too. The final piece of the puzzle, the leering green face of the Grinch on the “natty Christmas sweater,” confirmed to Riker that the dead six-footer staring the meat from his bones was indeed Vern’s son, Shane.
As Riker waited for undead Shane to get close enough to put down with the Randall, the overpowering stench of rotting flesh reminded him that the pack of dead things was somewhere on the nearby street and heading his way.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he performed a quick turkey-peek around the corner. While letting the dead see him and then luring them away from the mini-mall was part of the plan, coming face-to-face with an undead teen in a wedding dress definitely was not.
Two things happened back to back. First, Riker recoiled and said, “The hell you get there so quick?” Then, reacting a half-beat slower, the doll-like corpse’s dead eyes flicked left, its jaw dropped open, and both of its bite-ravaged hands commenced an upward sweep for Riker’s face.
For a person of Riker’s stature, backpedaling usually required a little bit of concentration. Doing so in a near panic and without benefit of a backward glance, he immediately learned, was not in his wheelhouse.
Feet inexorably tangled, all two hundred and twenty pounds dragging him backward, Riker grudgingly let go of his rifle and brought both hands up to protect his face. It was the classic defensive posture, the same the dead woman in the spa had employed, only Riker had no intention of going out like her.
Though his elbows struck the sidewalk first, it did nothing to soften the breath-robbing blow delivered to his back when his body slammed hard back to earth. Electric currents of pain rippled through both arms. As the wind rushed from his lungs, twin starbursts erupted behind his eyes and the throbbing in his head ramped up.
Though Riker knew the rest of the zombies were just around the corner—the heavy pong of death riding the air all the confirmation he needed—survival dictated that he focus solely on the danger directly in front of him.
Just as the undead girl pounced, Riker managed to get his right hand wrapped around her neck. As he increased the pressure and locked his arm to create some distance, three of his fingers plunged under a flap of skin that arced from the thing’s collarbone to a spot an inch south of the bloody cavity where an ear was supposed to be. The half-moon-shaped wound looked to have been created by a single pass of a very sharp blade. It was bloodless and cold, instantly chilling his fingers all the way to the knuckles.
Fingernails painted ruby-red scythed the air in front of Riker’s face. The girl was strong for her size. Which made him think he was wrestling with one of Lia’s “Randoms.”
As Riker struggled to get to the Randall with his off hand, the steady clack of teeth snapping dangerously close to his ear drowned out all other sound. If the rest of the herd had rounded the corner behind this one, he was blind to it and surely about to be dead meat.
Simultaneous with the big blade clearing the sheath, the zombie strained to take a bite out of Riker’s shoulder. Like a rabid dog, it snarled and snapped and whipped its head back and forth. The incessant movement dislodged the nest of intricate braids wrapping its head. The ensuing explosion of fine black hair cascaded down over its face, completely blocking Riker’s entire field of view.
<
br /> Working blind, Riker dragged the Randall across his chest. Arm and hand now out from under the weight of the writhing form, he swept the blade up and around—a clockwise half-circle that began by his left hip and ended a couple of inches from his face. The blow was vicious and produced an awful crunch. The sound of bone losing the battle with honed steel was usurped by a wet squelch as the blade cleaved smartly through forgiving brain tissue. One second the zombie in Riker’s grip was fighting like a pissed-off badger, the next it was a limp ragdoll, arms and legs yielding at once to the pull of gravity.
The rank odor of decay was overwhelming Riker as he tossed the stilled corpse aside. Breathing through the mouth, he rolled over and got up on his knees. As he rose on rubbery legs, undead Shane slammed into the waist-high window frame to his right. The impact started the entire run of window frames vibrating and dislodged some of the remaining glass, sending it tumbling to the ground where it made a great amount of noise as it shattered into tiny slivers.
The horizontal edge of the window frame came up to the Grinch’s chin and prevented undead Shane from leaving the store. Triangle-shaped glass shards protruding vertically from the frame had become buried inches deep into the zombie’s gut. As the thing lunged and reached for Riker, the glass acted like oversized saw teeth, tearing into its abdomen like a hot knife through butter.
Good thinking, Vern. Whether your son reanimated or just moldered for eternity inside the empty store, probably a better place than most to deposit the body. Nobody in their right mind would venture inside, considering the shelves had been emptied of food.
Riker couldn’t blame the old man for taking this route. It wasn’t a cop-out. Truth be told, if Riker hadn’t made a pact with Tara, he would probably struggle long and hard with the decision. For be it by blade or bullet, putting down a loved one had never once in his thirty-eight years on earth crossed his mind. Not even when his mom was dying of cancer. He’d even remanded to Tara the task of reminding the nursing staff of their mom’s do not resuscitate order. So, in a way, he was just as weak as Vern.
Knowing there would be no way for him to honor his promise to Vern if he rabbited now, Riker moved toward the window. Widening his stance on the sidewalk, he reached out and grabbed a handful of the zombie’s hair. Pulling the thing forward put a lot of stress on the window frame. It also finished what the jagged glass had started. There was a rush of eye-watering gas and Shane’s guts spilled from underneath the Grinch sweater.
Gagging and about to throw up in his mouth, Riker stabbed the Randall into the zombie’s left temple. As the living corpse ceased all movement and its eyes rolled back in its head, Riker let go of its hair, hinged over, and threw up on his Salomons. Sidestepping the spreading pool of bile and bodily fluids flowing around his feet, Riker lifted undead Shane’s upper body off the window frame. A hard shove on the shoulder sent the body crashing to the floor inside the store.
Out of sight, but in no way out of mind.
Chapter 38
Riker was still mourning Vern’s loss when he stepped from the low-curb and made a bee-line across the narrow end of the kidney-shaped lot. As he stepped onto the sidewalk where the north and east runs merged to become a kind of swooping arc, he was afforded a clear view up and down the nearby two-lane.
The zombie herd was farther down the road than he had expected it to be. He could see the first third of them. They were out in the open, a good twenty yards away, three abreast and trudging up the middle of the street. The rest, maybe twelve or so, were in a knot and lagging back about fifteen feet behind the main group. Though they were still partially obscured by parked cars and low-hanging branches on the trees lining both sides of the road, Riker saw that Shorty was right: They were indeed wearing their Sunday best.
Now or never, thought Riker, and he stepped off the curb. Though he already was a pretty big target, he stuck the AR in the air and waved his arms, hollering at the top of his voice, “Here I am, you stinky carnivores! Come and get me!”
All at once a whole bunch of eyes locked on him and one of the zombies in the lead element, a small dark-haired boy in a knit shirt and navy pants, broke into a head-down sprint.
Riker was reminding himself to use the knife to save ammunition, just as a second Random, a twenty-something female in low-heels and a knee-length skirt, split off from the laggards.
The self-admonition seemed ridiculous to Riker, considering he was now facing two fast movers. It became downright ludicrous when a third zombie bolted from the dwindling lead element.
Grabbing hold of the rifle with both hands, Riker risked a quick glance at the hardware store. Neither Vern nor Lia were visible at the moment. However, on the sidewalk was a growing pile of supplies. There were colorful cardboard boxes. Rubbermaid bins. A jumble of red gas cans. Various soft goods piled high to the right of the alcove mouth. And, standing out amongst it all, several humongous bags of something. Topsoil? Fertilizer?
Having used Riker’s catcalls to cover the sound of his footsteps, Benny had sprinted across the lot and crouched down beside the Rubicon. He had set the gas can on the ground next to him and deployed the siphon pump next to the filler door.
Part of the plan.
As Riker looked on, Benny jammed the hose attached to the pump into the tank. The other hose he stuck into the mouth of the gas can. He immediately started cranking the siphon’s side-mounted handle. In no time the can at Benny’s feet began turning a darker shade of red than the others. Which told Riker gas was flowing into it. Satisfied he was seeing the least important part of his plan coming off without a hitch, he turned to face the zombie herd and trained the AR’s business end on the smartly dressed undead boy.
Flicking the selector to Fire, Riker settled the crosshairs on a spot just below the kid’s brow. Whispering, “I’m sorry,” he pressed the trigger two times in rapid succession.
The first .308 round snapped left of the undead boy’s wildly lolling head. The follow-on shot found its mark, striking an inch lower than where Riker had been aiming. Instead of punching a neat little hole between the bushy black eyebrows, the screaming hunk of lead destroyed the undead kid’s tiny nose. Instantly deflected upward as it careened through the sloped ethmoid bone, the bullet broke apart, each sharp-edged fragment charting a course of its own through cranial bone and brain tissue.
The undead boy was standing straight and coming out of his shoes when Random number two filled up Riker’s gunsight. Low heels clacking furiously on the blacktop, arms and legs miraculously working in concert, the thing was a few yards out and closing fast. With no time to line up a headshot, Riker aimed for center mass and snapped off a half-dozen rounds. The first pair of hits opened a fist-sized hole just under the thing’s finely sculpted chin. The third entered through the mouth clean and exited the right cheek with little more than a spritz of pale dermis. Amazingly no blood, teeth, or flesh followed. Aim affected majorly by the perfect storm of adrenaline dumping his system, the banger of a headache assaulting every nerve in his head, and the AR’s normal muzzle climb, Riker’s next three shots went high and wide.
Vowing to put more practice in with the rifle, assuming he survived this scrape, Riker pulled a move from his gridiron days. Sidestepping left, he dipped his hips, lowered his right shoulder, then, pretending the charging corpse was wearing pads, drove his elbow up and forward, aiming for the spot the center laces should be.
The sickening crunch and crackle of breaking ribs resounded when Riker and the zombie collided. A simple twist of the hips on his part unloaded an enormous amount of pent-up energy, the move sending the female Random airborne, skirt fluttering over its face, arms and legs a blur of motion. As it crashed hard on the asphalt, the other shoe broken in two, all of its efforts immediately went into a sad attempt at standing.
Down but not out. Still, sidelining the female Random for a second gave Riker time to take aim on the final runner—a Hispanic male in its teens when it had died the first time. It was ten or so yards out and
running diagonally for Riker when he put it down with a pair of shots to the face.
When Riker finally returned his attention to the female Random, it was still struggling to stand. One arm hung limply from the socket. Riker guessed it had become dislocated when the thing dropped back to earth. A length of jagged bone protruded from the other arm, causing it to buckle as soon as any weight was put on it. And adding insult to injury, the fingers on that hand were bent back at peculiar angles.
If that wasn’t enough, the heel had snapped off its other shoe, further adding to the difficulty the zombie was having in rising up off the road. If this living corpse had actually been an opponent on the gridiron, Riker thought, he would most definitely be adding another morale sticker to the back of his helmet.
But this wasn’t a game. This was life and death. And death was literally stalking up the road, coming for him, a wall of gnashing teeth still too numerous for him to take on alone.
Acting without thought of who the female zombie used to be, (there would be time to contemplate that later) Riker walked right up to it, touched the AR’s muzzle to the top of its head, and pressed the trigger one time. There was no spray of bone or brain matter. No blood, either. The report was muffled as the bullet simply opened a hole in the skull and destroyed the organ running things.
Riker didn’t see the zombie topple forward. He wasn’t aware the escaping energy had pushed both eyes from their sockets. Nor was he privy to the brains dribbling from the entry wound. He was already staring at the zombie troop, still several yards down the road and closing.
Riker didn’t need to do the arm wave thing again. No need to yell, either—every single one of them was focused solely on him.
Another part of the plan.
From somewhere behind Riker came the sound of the EarthRoamer’s motor firing. The low rumble was soon joined by the reverse-gear whine of it moving away from him. When he finally stole a glance over his right shoulder, he saw three things: sixty yards down the arcing boulevard, Marge was moving right to left, with Shorty just steering the rig into a sweeping J-turn. In the middle distance, the Shelby sat all alone at the curb, unattended. Across the mini-mall parking lot, a hundred yards or so from the apex of the curving boulevard, the pile of goods in front of the hardware store had tripled in size.
Riker's Apocalypse (Book 3): The Precipice Page 24