A Plague on All Houses (20 page)

Kaitlyn leapt to her feet, fists clenched.
Oh yeah, go ahead and throw the first punch
, I thought.
Just give me an excuse.

Simone cleared her throat. Amazing how expressively threatening that simple sound could be under the right circumstances. Kaitlyn sat back down without another word and I kept my mouth shut. Simone looked at both of us. “Thank you. We do not have time for this sort of divisiveness. Of course you're important to us. But if the only way to contain this infection is to eradicate the hot zone … we may all be deemed acceptable collateral damage.”

Colonel Paxton shook his head. “We would do everything in our power to get you all out of here first, believe me.”

And I did. It made sense, especially when you considered Simone's extensive body of knowledge on the zombie virus. How could they have a Zombie Squad without her? It would be like the A-Team without Mr. T. Or Hannibal, which was a better comparison. And there went my brain off-roading again.

The upshot of the briefing was we were going out as one team tomorrow to a tourist/truck stop and motel called Big Foot's Revenge on the far side of Redwood Grove. We'd start there, fanning out to the residences in the area without actually going into town in the hopes the zombies would hear the moans of those we were engaging and move away from Redwood Grove, thinning out the numbers there so we could rescue the theoretical survivors holed up in either the church or school and get back to Big Red without being swarmed.

Yeah, I know, it made my brain hurt too.

The briefing, thankfully short, ended without any mention of Lil's and my excursion into Redwood Grove. So I'm not sure how word actually leaked out, but shortly after we went to our room, Lil and I had a parade of visitors wanting to meet Binkey and Doodle, both having obtained unofficial celebrity status.

Our fellow Wild Cards showed up first with the not surprising exception of Kaitlyn, eager to meet the kids. Mack seemed especially happy to have something to lavish affection on and both cats responded with nonstop motorboat purring, exposure of fat tummies for maximum rubs, and general behavior giving lie to the whole “cats are mysterious and aloof” myth.

The evening turned into an impromptu party, with med techs, soldiers, special ops. We had visitors from each group, all bearing wine, beer, or munchies of some sort. Even Dr. Albert stopped by, still wearing his white doctor's coat, a can of Starkist tuna in hand. “For the cats,” he said unnecessarily.

Colonel Paxton was absent, as was Gabriel, but Simone showed up briefly, looking as weary as I'd ever seen her, but still somehow managing to appear impeccably groomed. Maybe that was her Wild Card super power. Jamie accompanied her, not entirely shocking considering her mega crush on Simone, but what
did
surprise me was the shy smile Jamie gave me when she came in.

“I love cats,” she murmured, heading straight to pet Binkey and Doodle.

“These felines are, in a word, rotund,” Simone observed, sitting on the edge of Lil's bed and scratching both cats under the chin.

“Lil was worried about them starving to death.” I grinned at my roommate, now sitting on Tony's lap and drinking a local microbrew. Redwood Grove may be in the middle of nowhere, but the nowhere had a fair number of microbreweries and wineries, as well as local cheese makers. Big Red's pub was better stocked than many college bars. I resisted the urge to drink more than one beer; nothing says stupid like zombie hunting with a hangover.

“Nonsense.” Simone raised an eyebrow at Doodle as he stretched out a lazy paw towards her. “You, my feline friend, could live off your fat longer than a camel could live off its hump.” Doodle yawned, unimpressed.

Simone scritched his tummy absent-mindedly as she turned back to me and dropped her voice so only I could hear her next word. “You realize what a foolhardy thing you and Lil did, don't you?”

I shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. But I'd do it again.”

It was Simone's turn to nod. “I know. I don't know if this makes you a great hero or an idiot.”

“How about an idiotic hero or heroic idiot?”

We both looked up to see Gabriel standing right above us, having entered the room without my noticing. Sneaky, that. But considering the ebb and flow of our visitors, not too surprising.

I grinned, happy to see him and especially happy that he was smiling back. Lil waved at him from Tony's lap, splashing beer on Kai, who was hunkered down on the floor next to them, and cried, “Gabriel! Meet Binkey and Doodle!”

Jamie moved aside and Binkey and Doodle allowed Gabriel to rub their bellies, their purrs rumbling above the conversations in the room. “Affection sluts” didn't even begin to do those two justice.

“It's getting late,” said Simone. “Probably best if everyone goes to bed soon. Tomorrow is not going to be an easy day.” Jamie immediately got to her feet.

Gabriel clapped his hands together to get everyone's attention. “Okay, kids, time to hit the hay.”

“I want another beer,” said Lil, upending her now-empty bottle with a pout.

“Hear, hear!” Tony raised his own beer and chugged it.

“Let me put it this way,” said Gabriel. “Would you rather face a town full of zombies without enough sleep and a probable hangover, or in top mental and physical condition?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Tony tossed his empty bottle in the trash can, grabbed another full one off the little table, and popped the top off.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and grabbed the beer before Tony could take more than a sip. “Tony, you are pushing it.”

Tony scowled at him. “C'mon, man, it's a free country. We've earned a couple of beers.”

Gabriel stared him down. “Kid, this is at least your third. I'm guessing probably more.”

Tony tried staring back, but lowered his eyes after a few seconds. “You suck, Tofu.”

“Yeah, Joystick, I guess I do.”

“That's X-box,” Tony grumbled.

“Or Wii,” said Kai, getting to his feet in an effortless move that belayed the three beers he'd already consumed.

Lil looked a little pie-eyed as she slid off Tony's lap, wobbling slightly. I hoped she'd be okay in the morning. I got the feeling she hadn't done a hell of a lot of drinking before becoming a Wild Card. Maybe she was taking the moniker to heart.

Grabbing a bottled water, I twisted off the top and handed it to my loopy roomie. “Here, kiddo. This and a couple of ibuprofen will do ya.”

Lil took the water even as she grumbled, “I wannanother beer.”

“And I want world peace, so we're both shit out of luck tonight.” I patted her affectionately on the head.

“Let's go, troops.” Gabriel herded the rest of our visitors out. Mack stopped for a quick hit-and-run scritch for both cats and then a hug for me, whispering, “You done good, kid,” as he did so.

Those four words left a warm glow that followed me down into a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep.

The next day dawned way too early for my taste, and it dawned without a hint of sunlight. The trees and buildings were masked with the kind of fog filmmakers conjured up by machines; we were only missing the blue backlighting. It was also one of those white, drippy fogs that soaked hair and clothes after just a few minutes of exposure. Annoying for the work at hand, but great for the skin.

All the Wild Cards were stuffed cozily in a Chevy Suburban, the back row of seats folded down to make room for our gear. Gabriel drove and Captain Gentry rode shotgun. We'd left Big Red by the main road leading down into Redwood Grove, bypassing the town, which still seethed with zombies, and heading twenty miles west to Bigfoot's Revenge, the first major tourist stop within twenty miles of Redwood Grove and a good place to start our search and destroy. If we attracted any undead attention, it would be easy enough to lead them away from campus and circle back to big Red. At least, this was the working theory. Like I said, the whole strategy part of this gave me a headache.

After about a half hour, Gabriel pulled the SUV into the cedar chip and dirt parking lot of Bigfoot's Revenge. The tourist trap had been around since the 1950s, one of the more popular stops on the way up through Northern California. It had a souvenir shop with chainsaw carved bears, eagles, totem poles, and (probably illegal) Disney characters carved from redwoods; a motel comprised of twelve quaint log cabins, and a coffee shop with “the best mochas in the Pacific Northwest!” according to the billboards advertising the place. There was even a drive-thru redwood on the property, but they'd stopped pushing that attraction ever since a SUV got wedged in the middle and had had to be extracted with a winch.

There were about a dozen other vehicles in the lot, some parked neatly against the redwood log guides at the edge of the lot, others skewed haphazardly across the lot as if the drivers had skidded to a halt in a hurry. The front passenger to an old blue Chevy Impala hung wide open, and I could see blood pooling on the wood chips below. Not a lot of doubt about what we'd find inside the car itself.

No sign of zombie unlife in the parking lot as we piled out of the truck, but the fog was thick enough to obscure corners of buildings and trees, masking any activity. Piles of redwood burls were stacked up on the porch along with the chainsaw sculptures. A seven-foot redwood Bigfoot, arms outstretched menacingly, loomed above us at the base of the stairs leading up to the porch of the souvenir/coffee shop. Wisps of fog curled up and around the statue, as well as the other carvings. Donald Duck peeked out of the fog from his perch on the porch landing and a large eagle sat on the railing, wings in perpetual mid-flight. The eerie silence combined with the fog actually made old Bigfoot actually look kind of scary.

I adjusted my gear, and made sure my weapons were in place, my M4 was at the ready, and my hair still tucked beneath my helmet. The rest of the Wild Cards were all doing the same, with the exception of Kaitlyn, who seemed unusually tense, even for her. Her expression was pinched, almost haunted as she looked around. If she'd been anyone else, I'd have asked what was wrong and tried to help. But I liked my head on my shoulders and not bitten off, thank you very much.

We'd opted to go without nose plugs this trip to give us the added advantage of being able to have the extra warning system of sensing approaching zombies by their particularly unlovely stench. We could always resort to plugs if things became too unbearable, but given the heavy fog and the number of directions they could approach from the surrounding woods, it seemed better to have all our enhanced senses up and running.

In fact—

I caught a whiff of something rotten in faint breeze. A branch cracked beneath a foot to my left, off at the edge of the parking lot. “Incoming,” I said as a friggin’ ginormous male zombie lurched out of the fog like something out of a (you guessed it) horror movie.

This porker was fatter by far than the pudgy businessman who'd taken a bite out of me; its blue-and-red checked flannel shirt could have doubled as a tablecloth and I didn't know they made jeans that size. Even still, rolls and ripples of pasty sallow-green flesh flashed where the hem of the shirt couldn't quite meet the waistband, which was doing its best to hide under all the stomach fat.

I didn't see any obvious signs of death, no bites, scratches, or other injuries. In fact, other than a little gore around the mouth and the definite undead tint to its flesh and eyes, this guy looked fairly normal, if being fat enough to qualify for three seats on an airplane could count as normal. I'd put money on a heart attack as cause of death.

It stretched out its arms as best it could, gave a pathetic hungry moan and continued to lurch towards us.

“Whoa, dude!” Tony laughed. “Last thing you need is any more food.” He turned to us. “He's as big as the fuckin’ Death Star.”

“Jenny Craig time for you, fellah,” I muttered, unsheathing my sword.

“Oh, come on,” whined Tony. “Lemme have this one, Ash.”

“No fair, I smelled him first.”

“Pu-leeeeze?”

I rolled my eyes and gave a little be-my-guest gesture. “Go for it.”

“You're too nice,” said Lil. “That one's gotta be worth a lot of points.”

“Nah,” said Gentry. “Too slow. Easy target. Biggest problem is if it falls on top of you. But you'd have to be pretty stupid and clumsy to have that happen under these circumstances.”

“Wanna place bets?” Kai grinned.

“Hey, I heard that, Lando,” growled Tony.

“You just be careful there, Joystick.”

Tony growled again, but chose not to reply.

We all watched as he casually strolled up to Death Star zombie, hefting a good sized sledgehammer with both hands. It cracked me up every time he did that ‘cause I expected him to see how hard and high he could ring the bell at the fair every time he used it. I didn't mention this, of course, since I knew he saw himself as a tough rebel, like the motorcycle raiders in the original
Dawn of the Dead
.

Hey, a guy's gotta have his role models, right?

Unable to resist the cheap shot, Tony swung the sledgehammer like a baseball bat and hit the zombie in its gut, no doubt expecting to knock it on its ass.

Whomp!

The hammer bounced back as if made of rubber and the unexpected rebound knocked Tony on his butt. I doubt he appreciated the irony. The rest of us did, though. Even Gabriel smiled.

Death Star moaned again, its attention now fully on its fallen would-be prey.

“Get a move on, kid.” Gentry mimed looking at a watch. “Plenty more to kill without you messing around with this one.”

Tony scowled and scrambled to his feet. He circled behind Death Star and without further ado smashed the sledgehammer against the back of its skull once, then twice. The zombie staggered one more step forward, then toppled over onto its front with the slow majesty of a downed redwood. The ground shook as it hit, bits of dust and redwood chips flying up and out from the impact. It was unfortunate the thing landed face down because we were all treated to the unlovely sight of very fat zombie plumber's crack.

Tony raised his hammer for one last blow to its skull.

Keee-runch
. Dead zombie.

Wiping the head of the sledgehammer on Death Star's flannel shirt, Tony grinned in satisfaction. “Let's see how many follow the big fat moaning dinner bell outside.”

Sure enough, more moans drifted through the fog, signaling the approach of more zoms.

A door creaking on its hinges turned our attention to the souvenir shop. A female zombie inside the shop tugged on the edge of the heavy wooden door, cracking it further open until it could squeeze through the opening. It couldn't have been more than five years old when it had died, filthy blond hair in braided pigtails tied off in jaunty pink ribbons that matched the pink of its T-shirt and frilly little skirt. Large chunks of flesh were missing from its neck, arms, and shoulders. It saw us and eagerly staggered towards the stairs leading from the porch to the parking lot, sad little hungry mewls emanating from its mouth.

Someone gasped. I turned to see Kaitlyn staring at the little girl zombie with an expression of such sorrow and loathing it almost hurt to see it. I remembered the story she'd told about watching her sister and nice being ripped to pieces in front of her. Oh jeez, it couldn't be.

“Jocelyn…” Kaitlyn's agonized whisper told me it could be and it was. A wave of pity swept over me and it didn't matter that I knew it wouldn't be welcome; the raw pain on Kaitlyn's face demanded it.

Mack stepped forward and unholstered his M4. His eyes were leaking slow, steady tears as he took careful aim and pulled the trigger. The zombie collapsed at the top of the stairs and Kaitlyn gave a great keening wail, knees crumbling underneath her as if they couldn't support the weight of her grief.

Mack went to hug her, but she pushed him away and held herself, arms crossed protectively across her chest as she rocked back and forth in time to her sobs.

We didn't have time to worry about comforting Kaitlyn. Other zombies staggered out of the trees on all sides and from the interior of the gift shop. I heard thumping sounds from some of the cabins as the zombies inside tried to get out and see who'd come to dinner.

We all formed a rough circle around the still-stricken Kaitlyn, covering all angles of approach, M4s in hand. Tony tossed his sledgehammer on the ground next to the SUV.

“Pick your targets and don't waste ammo,” Gabriel barked. “Clear space and if you missed the head, finish the job.”

“Double tap!” hollered Tony and Kai simultaneously, one on either side of me.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, what would you two talk about if you couldn't quote movies?”

Kai leered at me. “Women, of course.”

No more time for banter, witty or otherwise, ‘cause we now had upwards of thirty zombies closing in on us from all directions, gory phantasms shrouded by the mist. Gunfire filled the parking lot, the sound oddly muffled by the heavy fog, the smell of cordite mingling with the scents of pine, cedar, and zombies.

Even in the heat of the moment, I was impressed at how well my fellow Wild Cards kept their heads under pressure. The sight and smell of these things were truly horrible and having them close in, arms outstretched, mouths stretched wide to reveal teeth dripping with blood and black fluid, was a sight to freeze the hearts of most people. Which is probably why a lot of them died here. But the Wild Cards never faltered and within minutes all visible zombies sprawled dead around us.

We stood in silence for a moment, the only sounds Kaitlyn's grief, which had trickled down to a few choked sobs, and steady thumping on the inside of some of the cabins.

Gabriel knelt by Kaitlyn and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. “You need to pull it together,” he said quietly. “You're going to get yourself or one of your team members killed if you can't.”

Kaitlyn's eyes flashed with a look of wild hatred that quickly diffused into an almost bewildered expression as if suddenly realizing where she was, and why—and not liking it much.

Gabriel's gaze held steady. “Can you pull yourself together? Can you do this? We need you.”

Kaitlyn gave a wrenching, watery sigh and nodded. “Yeah. I can do this.” She sighed again and it was as if something she'd been carrying around suddenly dropped off her shoulders. She got to her feet, actually letting Gabriel help her. Then, even more surprisingly, she squared her shoulders, looked at Mack and said, “Thank you. I couldn't have done it. And it needed doing.”

Mack reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I know. I'm sorry, Kaitlyn.”

She nodded, then looked around at the rest of us, pausing when she reached me. “I am too.” She held my gaze for a few seconds, then walked off to the edge of the parking lot, head bowed.

Not exactly touchy-feely, but I have to say I felt warmer towards Kaitlyn at that moment than I ever expected.

Gabriel gave her a few minutes before saying, “Time to check the shop and the cabins. Ashley, Kaitlyn, Mack, and Kai will take the cabins. The rest of us will check the souvenir shop and the back area. Everyone, keep an eye out for more flesh eaters trailing in from the woods. Any trouble, give a holler.” He patted his walkie-talkie. “Any questions?”

I cleared my throat. “Any reason we're not working in our normal teams?”

“We may not always have the time to divide into teams,” said Gabriel. “You've all proven you can handle yourself under pressure and you need to be able to count on any member of the Wild Cards to back you up. Okay?”

I nodded. Okay, then.

“Kaitlyn?”

Kaitlyn lifted her head in response to Gabriel's call and rejoined us, shoulders straight, the set of her jaw determined. She seemed to have found some odd sort of closure, and in doing so, some small peace of mind.