A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (42 page)

There was always the probability that there
might be one or two stray photos back at the house in Driggs. Or at
the very least, he thought with a grin, one of the many disposable
box cameras that he never got around to having developed. No more
one hour photo guarantees—yet one more thing he used to take for
granted that was forever altered by the apocalypse.

Shapes began to materialize from the dark, no
thanks to the Scout’s one remaining headlight. The collision with
the errant zombie on 189 had broken the driver’s side headlight and
Lu Lu’s coolant temperature had been in the red since midway up the
pass which led him to believe the truck’s radiator had been
punctured.

The burned out school bus he remembered from
his last trip over the Teton pass came into view, its twisted
blackened hulk still blocking the highway.

He stopped in the center of the scorched
highway and set the e-brake.

Where the hell are you Jenkins
?

As if in response to his thought, a shrill
buzzing emanated from between the front seats. He snatched up the
police radio and then realized that he was hearing the satellite
phone.

“Is that you Sergeant Cade?” he blurted into
the handset.

“Daymon... I’m very sorry,” Cade said,
getting right to the point, “we searched the mansion and found no
sign of Heidi.”

Silence.

Cade went on, “We have Robert Christian. If
it’s any consolation he will pay for the atrocities committed by
him and his men.”

“The Bishop guy?” Daymon asked.

“He squirted like a rat on a sinking ship,”
Cade proffered, confirming what Daymon already knew.

“Thanks for following through—you didn’t have
to,” said a morose sounding Daymon.

“I gave you my word.”

“That you did,” Daymon intoned. “That you
did…”

Cade grabbed the bulkhead as Ari banked the
helo hard to starboard. Once his stomach returned to its normal
position he said, “We just overflew a massive herd of dead bearing
down on downtown Jackson... where are you?”

“Teton pass... then home.”

“After that?”

“Probably Eden. I miss that old coot
Duncan.”

“That makes two of us. Keep the phone near.
Call if you need anything and I’ll help if it’s humanly
possible.”

“No doubt,” Daymon said.

“Take care and thanks,” were Cade’s parting
words.

Daymon thumbed off the phone and laid on Lu
Lu’s horn in frustrated dismay.

The police radio rang—a more pleasant sound
than the sat phone. Daymon hoped the news was going to be better.
“Hello.”

“Get your gear and leave your truck. Do it
now and hurry up about it.”

Daymon did as he was told. He was too tired
to argue and too tired to question. Leaving his beloved Lu Lu in
the road he trudged around the bus, lugging all of his gear:
shotgun, crossbow, Kelty pack, and the sat phone. He noticed the
two dead NA soldiers first, and as he stepped over their corpses
the gunshot wounds to their faces were impossible to miss.

Chief Charlie Jenkins exited the Jackson PD
Tahoe in his blue JPD uniform. Gone was the all black NA uniform he
had been expected to wear. Coming forward he extended an arm to
help Daymon with his gear. He took the bow and pack. “I’ll put
these in back, best to keep the shotgun close by.”

Daymon nodded at the corpses and asked, “What
happened to these two?”

“They chose the wrong side. Get in,” Jenkins
said as he went around the front of the Chevy.

Moving slowly, obviously in pain from old
injuries, Daymon complied.

“Look who I found,” Jenkins said, pointing a
thumb towards the second row seats.

Daymon looked over his shoulder and noticed
the shock of dirty blonde hair snaking from under a shiny foil
space blanket. “
Heidi
?” he blurted, turning his gaze towards
Charlie.

“I found her at the end of 22—by the
crosses.”

“
Alive
?”

“She was hypothermic when I found her draped
over the barbed wire. She was smart to take clothes off of the
dead. That and the fact that she made herself visible saved her
life. She can’t talk...or didn’t want to... her neck looks awful...
all black and blue—someone tried to strangle her.”

Daymon crawled into the back seat, making the
blanket crinkle as he edged close to her. “Take us home,” he said.
He alternated between gently stroking her hair and wiping his hot
tears that seemed to be never ending.

Chapter 48

Outbreak - Day 12

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Jackson Hole Airport - 3:10 a.m.

Cade stowed the sat phone and as he did so
caught Lopez looking at him. He shifted his gaze to Tice, saying,
“Get your counter out, Spook. Ari, we are going to need a standoff
recon of the airport before we go in. See if there are any
personnel or Zs we will have to contend with.”

“Copy that Captain,” Ari said as the elk
refuge with the still burning hardware blazed by. He nosed the helo
closer to the deck then leveled off and flashed the Delta team a
thumbs up.

Two minutes later Ari parked Jedi One-One in
a hover a mile off while Durant operated the FLIR (Forward Looking
Infrared) camera. Contained in a dome mounted on a motorized
rotating gimbal underneath the helo’s chin, the camera transformed
whatever it was trained on into a thermal image. Hot spots, such as
engine blocks, exhaust pipes and even a human body glowed white
while cold surfaces remained gradient shades of black. To Durant
the luminescent scene displayed on the flat screen made the airport
and support vehicles look like kids toys. Rendered monochrome and
lacking true depth, a phalanx of tractor trailers parked side by
side stretched the length of the runway. The Airport Authority’s
refueling bowsers, which were high on Ari’s priority list, sat
quietly near a grouping of hangars. Several fixed wing aircraft
including what looked like a 757 commercial airliner sat idle,
blocking the taxiway. The single runway, labeled 19, ran northeast
by southwest. Beside it the squat airport built primarily with
exposed wood beams and girders sat empty and dark.

“No real hot spots to speak of except for the
vehicles—I estimate forty or fifty in the parking lot east of the
airport—and based on their low heat sig they have all been parked
for some time,” Durant commented.

“They didn’t exactly park between the lines,”
Tice said with a chuckle.

“What you have there is a meter maid’s wet
dream,” Ari quipped.

“Sure looks like they left in a hurry,” Hicks
added.

On the floor their prisoner craned his neck
and looked up. He appeared to be trying to communicate though the
bandanna was still occupying his mouth.

“Shut up,” Cade hissed as he put a boot on
Christian’s face and forced his head down. “You can do all of your
singing to the President and her men when we get back to
Schriever.”

After panning the FLIR over the entire
airport, zooming in on suspect locations, and then making a second
pass for good measure, Durant concluded the airport had been
abandoned.

“Going in gentlemen, two mikes—lock and
load,” Ari said.

“Take us to the semi-trucks first,” Cade
ordered.

“Then we need to top off with JP-8 or we’ll
be gliding the last two hundred miles to Schriever.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Tice’s face
tightened and he said, “Helos can’t glide.”

“Duh
dumbass
... that’s Ari’s point,”
Lopez shot back.

Boys will be boys and even though most of the
world had died, apparently old rivalries were alive and well. Cade
just hoped that when they got back to Schriever the two men didn’t
come to blows. However if they did, he had already decided his
money would be on Sergeant First Class (Low-Rider) Lopez, even
though the veteran Delta operator was vertically challenged.

The wheels deployed; seconds later the Gen-3
helicopter flared and Ari settled her down twenty yards from the
tractor trailer rigs.

The door opened and the Delta operators piled
out. Then with lasers sweeping the ground in front, the men
sprinted to the rear of the nearest rig.

The Ghost Hawk lifted off with a blast of
rotor wash and hovered near silently five hundred feet above the
runway.

Tice strode down the line of trucks, pausing
now and again to sweep the Geiger counter around the seals and
loading decks of the numerous trailers.

“Getting any readings?” Cade asked.

Tice stopped and turned, fully facing the
Delta captain. “Nothing. These trucks haven’t been anywhere near a
nuke. Nash was right about her bird’s imagery... she just didn’t
know what was contained inside.”

“Let’s find out.”

Tice shrugged off his M4, set the Geiger
counter aside and retrieved the miniature bolt cutters, and with an
awful impersonation of Bob Barker said, “Let’s see what’s behind
door number one.” He snipped the two locks. “Someone give me a
hand.”

With Maddox’s help both doors parted
revealing numerous wooden pallets stacked to a height of roughly
four feet. Cade grabbed the side of the trailer and pulled himself
up, his knees and back creaking in protest. “These go all the way
to the front,” he commented as he pulled one corner of the heavy
canvas covering the cargo. “
Wow!
” he exclaimed as he exposed
the entire pallet’s cargo.

Tice was taken aback—first from the biggest
display of emotion he had seen from the stone-faced operator—then
because the most gold he had ever seen in his life was sitting
unguarded feet from him.

“Truck’s full of gold bars,” Cade said,
rubbing his dirt and grime encrusted neck.

Lopez whistled, “Must be hundreds of
them.”

“Close it,” Cade ordered. “We refuel and then
we’re
oscar mike
.”

“The gold?” Tice inquired.

“It’s beautiful... but it’s worthless,” Cade
said. “Food, bullets, and fuel, those three are the new gold.”

“Copy that,” Tice said slowly.

Cade swung the doors shut and strode to the
helo which had just touched down.

Ari ferried them to the refuel area where
Hicks jumped out first. They followed the same routine as Grand
Junction. Cade, Maddox and Lopez stood watch while the crew chief
checked the fuel trucks.

After a couple of minutes Hicks came loping
back to the helo. He stopped and animatedly shook his head and then
slid one finger across his neck.

No fuel
, Cade thought to himself. Then
a cold finger traced his spine as he realized that they had no
other choice but to refuel at Grand Junction Regional.

***

3:25 a.m.

Ari kept Jedi One-One close to 189 as they
left the valley and the Tetons behind. Along the way they passed
over downtown Jackson Hole which had already been overrun by the
legions of dead migrating from the southwest. “I’ve got more bad
news from Schriever,” Ari said in a funeral voice. “An outbreak
occurred inside the wire. The civilian billets were heavily
involved.”

Except for the humming of the carbon fiber
rotors and the turbine’s baffled whine the cabin was morgue
quiet.

After a few minutes had elapsed and a few
dozen miles disappeared behind them, Cade asked the question that
no doubt was on everyone’s mind. “How many casualties?”

“More than a hundred,” Ari said solemnly.

“And a handful in the mess hall,” Durant
added.

“Did they mention Brook or Raven?” Cade asked
knowing full well that Nash would
never
disclose devastating
news of that nature during an ongoing mission.

“No sir,” Durant answered. “But no news is
good news... isn’t that what they always say?”

Cade exhaled audibly. Thoughts and memories
of Brook and Raven suddenly escaped from the imaginary black box in
the deepest recesses of his mind. The knowledge that they had once
again been in harm’s way, and he had not been there for them,
troubled him deeply.

“Mindless rotters, they just roll over
everything in their way,” Tice muttered.

“Pinche demonios,” added Lopez.

“The next waypoint is Grand Junction Airport
four hundred and thirty miles to the southwest,” Durant informed
Ari. Then he switched to private comms to address Hicks directly.
“How much JP-8 was left in the tanker at GJT?”

“More than enough to get us home. Five
hundred gallons plus.”

“Same routine—hot refuel. Let’s hope more Zs
haven’t shown up since yesterday.”

“Wishful thinking Durant,” Hicks stated.

Cade broke his silence and asked Ari and
Durant if they would be at the airport before dawn.

“Negative,” said Ari. “This bird will drink
way too much fuel if I ride her too hard. You are going to lose the
night vision advantage... it can’t be helped.”

Cade closed his eyes and thought about his
family.

***

Grand Junction, Colorado - 6:31 a.m.

“Five mikes,” Durant said.

The co-pilot’s voice echoed in Cade’s
headset, bringing him back to the present. Entering the helo from
the port side, sunlight filtered through the cabin causing him to
squint and rub his tired eyes. He looked out the window at the
landscape passing below the helicopter. Standing water in the
streets and parking lots reflected the early morning sun, giving
the scene a soothing radiance that he knew contradicted the reality
of the infested city. Turning his attention to the next task at
hand, he swapped the flight helmet for his Kevlar tactical and gave
the SCAR the once over.

Full mag? Check.

Round chambered? Check.

Safety? Check.

The weapon went between his knees barrel down
and he braced the stock against the side of his helmet. Around him
the other men were quietly going through their own personal
routines. In his peripheral vision he witnessed Lopez perform the
sign of the cross, kiss the ever-present crucifix hanging around
his neck, and tuck it back inside his ACUs.