A Plague on All Houses (23 page)

“You okay?” Gabriel put a steadying hand on my shoulder.

“I think so.” I gave him a brief smile, more to reassure him than anything else. The relief in his eyes, however, sent a rush of warmth through me.

“Good.” He reached out and touched my face, so softly and quickly it might not have happened. Then he was all business as he leaned in the back. “Can you get Kaitlyn out through the back?”

“I think so,” Mack replied. “Tony, you go first, then we'll hand Kaitlyn to you.”

Tony gave a grunt of what must have been assent before squirming through the gap between the back seats and the roof, hunkering down as best he could against the side rear window while Mack and Kai did their best to pass an unconscious Kaitlyn through to him.

Tony emerged back first from the rear of the SUV, hands hooked under Kaitlyn's armpits as he dragged her outside, the pillowcase, now tacky with blood, still pressed against her neck. He stretched her out on the ground as assorted thuds and grunts preceded Mack and Kai's exit from the vehicle.

We did a quick inventory for injuries. Blood dripped from Gentry's nose where something—probably my head—had clipped it during the roll and Tony had a gash across one cheek. We all could have used a bucket of ibuprofen but, all in all, we'd gotten lucky and escaped without any broken bones.

Kai thumped his helmet. “Guess there's a reason for these things after all.”

I did a quick check of all my weapons, gratified to find the various sheathes and straps had held.

Kaitlyn groaned, eyes fluttering open. “Wha—what?” Mack immediately dropped to her side.

“You're okay, sweetheart,” he said gently. “We're getting you back to Big Red, okay?”

Kaitlyn looked up at him, eyes glazed with pain and shock. Then she gave a small smile. “You're a liar, Postman.” Her voice was weak, but the words clear.

Mack smiled back. “I don't lie. It's part of the whole ‘neither rain nor sleet’ oath, didn't you know that?”

Her eyes shut again, the little smile still on her lips.

Mack looked up at Gabriel, his worried expression totally at odds with his confident words to Kaitlyn. “How far is it back to Big Red?”

“We're at least twenty miles out.” Gabriel shook his head. “We'll have to call for extraction.”

Gentry nodded and reached for his walkie-talkie. Before he could unhook it from his belt, the moans of the undead penetrated the fog. The sound of unsteady yet relentless footfalls headed our way through the trees.

Gabriel tensed. “We don't have time to wait for extraction. We'll have to run for it, find some kind of protection where we can make a stand or hole up until help can reach us. We'll have to carry Kaitlyn.”

“I can walk,” Kaitlyn said faintly.

“Sure you can walk,” said Mack as he and Kai helped her to her feet, supporting her weight between them. “You just can't stand.”

The moans and shambling footsteps grew closer, the dripping fog and echoes from the trees making it hard to tell exactly how far away they were and from how many directions they approached. The situation felt uncomfortably close to Lil's and my near-fatal encounter in Redwood Grove, except we weren't surrounded. Yet.

“This way!” Gabriel bounded in the opposite direction of where we'd gone off the road, the rest of us following as closely as we could given the thick undergrowth of bushes, saplings and other plants.

Trees, trees, and more friggin’ trees. It was so easy to forget how big the redwood forests were when you just drove through them now and again. Being smack in the middle on foot made me aware of how very small I was in comparison to the giants around me, and how easy it would be to get lost. Hopefully the zombies would find the mist-shrouded woods equally confusing. Gabriel kept up a good pace, but made sure not to outstrip the rest of us. It would have been all too easy for stragglers to get disoriented and separated in the fog, especially Mack and Kai as they did their best to support Kaitlyn, who tried valiantly to walk, but was practically a dead weight between them.

A low hanging branch smacked me in the face and I had to stop an irrational impulse to smack it back. I was tired, hungry, and had to pee.

My breath came in shorter gasps as the ground suddenly rose up in a steep grade, moist pine needles and mud slowly giving way to eroding granite and rocks, all of it slippery beneath our feet. Lil sprinted just ahead of me while Mack and Kai struggled to maintain their footing as they now dragged Kaitlyn between them. Tony and Gentry brought up the rear, helping Mack and Kai when they stumbled.

Even with our added Wild Card advantages, we couldn't go at this pace for much longer and the moans of the undead weren't fading off into the distance. They were tracking us, whether by smell or sound or both, and they had the advantage of never getting tired or needing a bathroom break. We needed to find shelter, and quickly.

We reached a particularly steep and treacherous slope, clumps of earth and rock crumbling beneath our feet as we clambered up, using scrub brush and trees as handholds. Lil slid back into me once, nearly sending us both tumbling back down the slope, but I managed to grab a nearby tree and dig my feet in until she regained her footing.

“Over here!” Gabriel's voice came from ahead, further up the slope. The rest of us scrambled our way up, finally hitting level ground—and a high chain link fence. About three feet of packed dirt and pine needles separated the fence from the slope in what looked like a well-worn path.

“This way!” Gabriel shouted. “There's a house over here!”

We followed the path along the fence towards the right and the sound of Gabriel's voice, the flat terrain the first break we'd had since the accident. Mack's face was red with the effort of hauling Kaitlyn up the slope and Kai didn't look too fresh either. Kaitlyn's skin looked moist and the pale, almost bluish tinge screamed “shock.” We had to get her inside and warm quickly because if the blood loss didn't kill her, the shock might.

I nearly ran into Gabriel where he stood in front of a locked gate, a narrow dirt road leading up to it from the woods below. Beyond the gate I could see what looked like an adobe structure, set back against a steep tree-studded hillside, really almost a cliff. The color of the building blended in with the rocks behind it, looking almost like part of the natural environment. The walls were gently rounded, reminding me of the hobbit houses in
Lord of the Rings
, and followed the curve of a rocky overhang, which sheltered the house and gave the impression of a very deliberate choice when the place was built. The chain link fence ran the perimeter, both ends butting up on either side of the hill. Both fence and gate were at least six feet tall and had barbed wire strung across the top. The words ‘fortified’ and ‘strategically placed’ sprang to mind, like a hobbit dwelling during wartime.

To the right of the house was one of those portable garage thingys, a metal frame structure covered by canvas. To the side of that was another, smaller portable shelter, this one surrounded by pieces of redwood: burls and cross-sections stacked like wooden cucumber slices.

The gate itself was your basic tubular bars made of galvanized steel, like a horse corral gate except the bars were set too close together to allow a person to climb in between them. A thick U-shaped latch flipped down around an equally sturdy metal post on the side. A heavy-duty padlock locked the two together.

“Can you open it?” I asked as Gabriel examined the padlock.

He shook his head. “It's a Medeco lock. The military uses them because they're near impossible to cut through them. We'll have to climb over.”

The rest of the team reached us.

“No way we can get Kaitlyn over this,” said Gentry. He wiped sweat from his forehead as it drizzled down beneath his helmet.

“You got any better ideas?” Gabriel snapped.

A fresh wave of ululating moans rose from the trees below us.

“Yeah,” I said. Grabbing the gate, I started shaking it as hard as I could and yelled, “
Help! If anyone's in there, please let us in!
”

The look on Gabriel's face was almost comically surprised. I shrugged and continued hollering. It only took a few seconds before Gabriel, Gentry, Tony, and Lil joined me in rattling the gate and adding their voices to mine.

The sound of metal rattling combined with our raised voices excited the zombies, the commotion causing the volume of their hungry cries to ratchet up a level as they blundered upwards through the trees. It couldn't be long before the first ones reached us.

Then what? How long could we hold them off, even with gravity currently on our side? We could charge back down through the woods on the far side of the path, but it sounded like they were coming up from all possible directions. And even if we could make it past them, no way Kaitlyn would make it.

I shook the gate with renewed determination, hollering at the top of my lungs. There had to be someone inside this mini-compound, damn it, and they had to hear the racket, and they
would
help us. Or I swear I'd come back and haunt them even after I'd been ripped to pieces and divvied up amongst a dozen zombies.

The moans and thrashing sounds grew closer. I took a quick peek over my shoulder and thought I saw movement through the fog beyond some trees about a hundred yards down the hill.

Shit.

Turning back to the gate, I opened my mouth to yell again—and froze, mouth agape as I found myself staring into the barrel of a very big gun held by a very tall and very pissed-off man.

Strong-featured, dark-eyed, with graying dark-brown hair cut close to his skull, the man looked about as welcoming as my dad did when he got cold-called by salespeople or Jehovah's Witnesses. He wore baggy khaki cargo pants, a dark green thermal shirt, and one of those photographer's vests with tons of pockets.

The rest of the Wild Cards had fallen silent as well. The zombies, however, kept moaning.

The man glared at us. “What the hell are you people doing here? This is private property.”

That voice. Lil and I looked at each other. Pulling her up next to me, I turned back to our pissed-off but hopefully host-to-be. Ignoring the gun barrel, I smiled brightly and said, “Hi there again. Can we use your bathroom?”

Everyone looked at me as if I'd gone bonkers except for Lil, who put her hands on the gate and stared up at him with the winsome gaze of a kitten trying to persuade a human to part with food.

The man looked from me to Lil, then back again. One eyebrow shot up. His eyes narrowed, then widened imperceptibly as recognition kicked in. “Sure.”

“You know this guy?” Gabriel didn't sound happy.

“He's the guy who helped me and Lil out in Redwood Grove,” I explained.

Lil nodded. “He helped us save Binkey and Doodle.”

Without further ado, our rescuer from the other night shouldered his gun, pulled out a key ring from one of the seemingly endless pockets, flipped through them rapidly, then inserted one into the padlock. It popped open and he quickly slid it out and unlatched the gate.

Before he opened it, he looked the group over, gaze lingering on Kaitlyn hanging limply between Mack and Kai. “So these are your fabled Wild Cards, eh?” He didn't sound impressed.

“What were you expecting?” I snapped. “The A-Team?” Rude, I know, but we needed to get Kaitlyn inside. And I really
did
have to pee.

“Hell, girl, a cheerleading squad would be more impressive than this bunch.”

“I've known some pretty nasty cheerleaders,” said Tony.

The man snorted. “Good point.” His gaze raked over me and Lil again. “Hell, at least you left the cats at home this time. Binkey and Doodle.” He shook his head, but opened the gate wide enough to let us in and barked, “They're almost here.” We didn't have to ask who—or what—he meant by ‘they.’ “Come on, move your asses.”

“That so falls in the category of totally unnecessary advice,” I told him as the Wild Cards stumbled inside the relative safety of the fence.

He shot me a look before shutting and relocking the gate. “Watch it or I'll charge you a quarter to use the bathroom.”

“I'll owe you,” I shot back.

“You already do.”

I couldn't argue with that so I didn't bother to try.

As our reluctant host led us to his house the first zombies reached the fence. Gabriel looked back as several zoms smacked into the chain link, rattling it loudly. “Will it hold?”

The man shrugged. “It should. Not a lot of room for them to mass up against it, but enough zombies with enough time on their hands might bring it down eventually. How many you figure followed you here?”

It was Gabriel's turn to shrug. “I don't know. But we were swarmed pretty heavily at Bigfoot's Revenge. They seemed to come out of nowhere too.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Great. If I'd wanted to hold a dinner party, I'd have sent out invitations. Well, we'd better get inside and hope the ones in front have short attention spans. Inside, everyone!”

The interior of the house was surprisingly spacious, with high arched ceilings and an airy, open feeling to it. The front door opened into a large living room on the right, a kitchen/dining area to the left and a hall straight ahead with several doorways on both sides and another at the very end of the hallway. Another case of bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside, same as DBP Hall. Good thing ‘cause our host was a bit taller than your average hobbit.

I didn’t take in much more than that first impression, though. I had a more pressing need. “Um, excuse me, where’s your bathroom?”

“Down the hall,” he said. “Last door on your left, past the gun room.” He turned to Mack and Kai, still holding Kaitlyn. “Let’s get her on the couch. Neck wound? Keep her head elevated.” They moved into the living room.

“A gun room?” Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Most people just have rec rooms.”

“Depends on your definition of recreation, I guess.” I smiled at him as I walked past. His hand on my arm stopped me.

“You doing okay?” The physical contact coupled with the intensity of his blue gaze sending a tingle up my spine that almost made me forget the needs of my bladder.

“Yeah,” I said, relishing his touch even briefly. “I’m fine.”
As long as you keep touching me
, I thought. “How about you?”

Gabriel gave a ghost of a smile. “I’ll live.” I took a good look at him, noticing the hollows under his eyes and a slight sallow tone to his skin.

“Are you sure? You don’t look so good.” I reached up and touched his face; it felt hot and clammy. Sweat trickled down from his hairline.

“Just tired.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently. “You did really well out there, Ash.”

“Thanks, Tofu.” Another pause. “I really have to use the bathroom.”

Gabriel smiled and let go of my hand. I hoped he was okay.

The bathroom was another surprise in that it was impeccably clean. Not what I’d come to expect from a single man. Yeah, I was heavy on the assumption road here, but there wasn’t anything in the bathroom that hinted at the presence of a resident or even occasionally visiting female.

As I did my business, I checked out my surroundings. Thick black towels matching the toilet (only a Goth or a bachelor would have black towels and matching toilet) hung from wooden pegs on the walls. A razor lay on the sink, carefully lined up next to a bar of soap in a black stone soap dish. A stack of
Military History
magazines sat in a large basket next to the toilet, along with a how-to book on building cob houses, a copy of the
Anarchist’s Cookbook
, and the unabridged copy of Stephen King’s
The Stand.
Interesting selection of reading material.

I noticed the address label on the back of one of the magazines: Nathan Smith. Sounded like an alias to me, sir, albeit a slightly more creative first name than John.

Finishing up, I washed my hands and then took advantage of the hot water, soap, and one of the black washcloths to try and get the dried blood off my face and neck. I also wanted to wipe away any trace of Jake’s saliva; whatever he was, I didn’t want that shit on my skin. I glanced in the mirror on the medicine cabinet above the sink. Yup, I looked about as awful as I felt. No twenty-four/seven access to makeup for me, unlike all the nubile young women in the SyFy Channel movies. Their lips were perfectly glossed even when chased across an island jungle by assorted mutated crocs/alligators/snakes/evil military people for hours on end. My lips were chapped and pale, their natural pale rose color leached out by stress and exhaustion. The circles under my eyes showed me what I’d look like when I was old—if I lived that long.

A knock on the door reminded me I wasn’t the only Wild Card who needed to answer the call of nature. Grabbing my weapons belt from where I’d dumped it on the floor in my haste to get my pants down, I opened the door to find Lil practically dancing in the hallway. She dashed by me, shutting the door behind her.

I went back up the hall at a more leisurely pace than I’d gone down it, glancing curiously at the closed door to the gun room as I went by. Every home should have a gun room, right?

Across from the gun room was an open door leading to what had to be his office. The brief glance inside told me our host was a Mac man all the way. Whatever he did for a living, he could afford all the latest models too.

All the Wild Cards sans Lil were in the living room, which looked like it had been furnished by Redwoods ‘R’ Us, with burl tables of various shapes and sizes scattered about. The large couch was redwood and leather, with a matching chair and ottoman tucked in an alcove with a curved window that had to have cost a fortune. There were books everywhere: on shelves, on the tables, under the tables, in stacks next to the tables. All subjects, from coffee table Most Beautiful Villages of You Name It to more how-to manuals, paperback fiction, biographies—pretty much a little bit of everything.

All in all, not a bad place to be holed up during an apocalypse if you liked to curl up with a good book. And a gun room.

They’d settled Kaitlyn on a large brown leather couch, head resting on two pillows. She shivered despite the two plaid blankets draped over her body. She did not look good, but at least she was conscious. Our host knelt by her side, checking out the neck wound. He glanced up when I walked into the room.

“Ashley, right?”

I nodded. “Yup, that’s me.” I couldn’t resist it. “Nathan, right?”

Up went his eyebrow. “You’ve been reading my mail.”

Lil came back from the bathroom. Gabriel immediately vanished down the hall. I hoped our host had plenty of TP stashed away.

“So Ashley, I need you to go into the kitchen and get a glass of water. You’ll find the glasses above the sink. There’s salt and baking soda in the cupboard on the right of the stove. Put two pinches of salt and one of soda in the water.” By way of explanation he added, “It’ll help with the shock, so hurry.” He started barking out orders to someone else involving a first-aid kit, but I didn’t wait to hear it.

Normally someone giving me orders sets my back up, but this guy had already pulled my and Lil’s asses—not to mention Binkey’s and Doodle’s furry butts—out of the fire once. Besides, while he talked like someone who expected people to listen to him without question, it didn’t seem like a power trip. More like he knew what needed to be done and the most expedient way to do it.

Everything was where he said it would be. This man was frighteningly organized, by my standards. I made the mixture as quickly as possible and trotted back into the living room.

Nathan took the glass with a nod and held the rim up to Kaitlyn’s mouth, supporting her head with his other hand so she wouldn’t choke. She took a sip and made a face, almost spitting it out, but Nathan kept the glass in place and said, “It may taste like shit, but it’ll help. Sip it slowly.” Slowly, using a combination of coaxing and bullying, he got her to drink most of the mixture.

Kai elbowed me out of the way with the granddaddy of all first-aid kits. This thing looked more like a plastic mini-fridge than any kit I’d ever seen before, even at Dr. Albertson’s office. Working as quickly and efficiently as any nurse, Nathan proceeded to disinfect, apply salve to, and bandage up Kaitlyn’s wound. She stayed quiet throughout, drifting in and out of consciousness, still shivering every now and then.

Mack waited until Nathan finished his first aid and moved away from the couch before asking in hushed tones, “Is she going to be okay?”

Nathan hesitated. He looked at Kaitlyn, then motioned Mack over by the front door before finally responding. “I don’t know. It’s a good thing you stopped the bleeding when you did or she would have died. But she’s lost a lot of blood and isn’t responding as well as I’d like to standard treatment for shock. She needs better medical attention than I can give her. And even then, I’d say it’s iffy.”

“But she’s a Wild Card.” Tony flopped down on the ground. “We heal faster than other people.”

“Then that’s probably the only reason she’s not dead,” said Nathan bluntly.

“So we have to get back to Big Red.” Mack looked at the rest of us. “Right?”

Nathan shook his head. “You were lucky to get here. Getting out isn’t going to be as easy, at least until the zombies that followed you here decide to try another diner.”

Gabriel took off his helmet and wiped sweat and blood from his brow. “That’s not going to happen. Those things will try their best to get in here until they either rot where they stand or break down the fence. They know there’s food in here.”

Nathan stared at him for a few seconds, expression unreadable. He strode over to the living room window, pulled the curtains aside, and looked out. Still expressionless, he dropped the curtains back into place and turned back towards the rest of us. Another pause before he slammed a fist against the wall and growled, “I can’t fucking believe you people led them here. FedEx and UPS can’t find their way up here with Google Maps. I had to drive fifty miles to one of their warehouses. But you guys? You hone in on the place like you’ve got a goddamn homing beacon.”

“Sorry.” Gabriel didn’t sound sorry at all.

Nathan snorted, obviously sensing the lack of sincerity.

“How about you?” Lil looked at Nathan with a mixture of hero worship and curiosity. “How do you get back here without them following you?”

Nathan’s expression softened fractionally. Lil’s velvet-painting big-eyed kitten thing did its job. “I know all the back roads, like the logging track I showed you two. I also have a little bit of experience when it comes to finding and losing people.”

“I’m guessing ex-military,” said Gentry. “Special Forces.”

“Rangers,” said Nathan. “And glad to be out of it.” He shook his head again. “Christ. Fucking zombies.”

“You don’t seem too surprised.” Gabriel folded his arms across his chest and gave Nathan an appraising stare.

Nathan shrugged. “I’m not. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit over the years and had my suspicions about a few that my superiors did their best to cover up. Guess they don’t know how much shit you can find on the Internet these days if you know where to look.” He paused. “I wish to hell I’d been wrong about this one, though.”

Tony gave a disbelieving laugh. “Dude, you’re pissed off because you were right about zombies? Seems like that makes you smarter than most people.”

“Not smarter than everyone.” Nathan looked at all of us. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. Why the hell weren’t you people better prepared for it?”

As grateful as I was for the use of his bathroom, this still pissed me off. “‘You people?’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever secret organization’s been covering this up all these years. You can’t tell me you’re not part of it.”

“We weren’t until we nearly died and became some kind of X-Men mutant zombie-resistant freaks.” Kai glared at him. “This is all new to us, man, so don’t mix us in with your ‘the truth is out there’ bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Gabriel said.

Everybody looked at him.

“You’ve all had the mini history lesson from Professor Fraser. This man—”

“Nathan—” I supplied.

“Nathan is right.”

“Big of you to admit it,” said the man in question.

“But we don’t have time to talk about it right now,” Gabriel continued. “We have to get out of here, get back to Big Red. The situation is worse than we’d thought and it’s only a matter of time before the zombies either make it past the perimeter of the quarantine zone... or the government nukes us.” He turned back to Nathan. “Do you have a vehicle we can borrow?”

“You want me to turn over my only means of transportation after you out me to a horde of hungry flesh-eaters?”

Gabriel nodded. “It’d be great if you could drive, actually. By your own admission, you know the roads around here.”

“Jesus jumped-up Christ in a sidecar.” Nathan laughed, no real amusement in the sound. “I suppose you’d like to raid my weapons supply while you’re at it.”

We all looked at one another. “You got extra ammo for M4s?” Gentry asked hopefully.

“What do you think?”

Man, Nathan was the master of the non-answer.

“Come on. Gonna need help lugging shit.”

“So we get to see the gun room.” Tony nodded. “Sweet...”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “Where are those bad-ass cheerleaders when you need ‘em?”

He strode down the hall and I admit I was hot on his heels, curious as hell to see what it looked like. I had a picture in my head of Burt Gummer’s basement room in
Tremors
, racks and cases of guns and ammo lining the walls. My image was not far off.

The door opened on a staircase that descended into a room very much like the one I’d imagined, right down to the concrete floor and walls and what I thought was an ammo tumbler on a workbench in one corner. I wondered if Nathan had an elephant gun like the one in
Tremors
. He had a lot of stuff I bet California law enforcement would frown upon, although it was probably legal in Texas.

Gabriel looked around, eyebrows raised. “You do know you’re in possession of some highly illegal shit.”

“Depends on who you talk to,” said Nathan coolly. “Let’s just say I’ve earned the right to bear arms.”

“And flamethrowers?” Gabriel slapped one of two green tanks attached to a metal and canvas frame, with what looked like a high-tech gasoline hose and nozzle hooked up to it. “Military issue, no less.”

Nathan shrugged. “Anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to question a man about to loan you munitions?”

Way to evade,
I thought. I kept it to myself, though, because I agreed with Nathan. He didn’t have to help us. We’d led a shitload of zombies to his front door and were asking him to risk his safety to help us get back to Big Red. I’m not usually an anarchist, but in this case I think he had the right to all the privacy he wanted. Of course, I’d be pretty red-faced if he turned out to be another Unabomber.

Mack had stayed upstairs with Kaitlyn, but the rest of the team wandered around the gun room, oohing and ahhing over weaponry the way my mom waxed enthusiastic over luxury yarns in her local knitting supply store. I bet Mom could totally take on a zombie with some of those knitting needles. Pop! Right in the ear and into the brain. That being said, I hoped she never had to try to knit one, pearl zombie.