District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (10 page)

The crushed gravel squelched under tire as Daymon steered
the Chevy pickup onto the Woodruff Post Office parking lot. The truck lurched
and took a sudden lean to the right before leveling out.

“Jeez,” he said, stopping two car-lengths short of the glass
double-doors being pawed at by a handful of rotters.

“Yeah,” chimed Oliver. “Where in the hell did all of those things
come from? And why haven’t the others put them down yet?”

“The pusbags aren’t what I was
Jeezin
’ about.”

“What’s the problem then?” Oliver asked, hefting his AR and
racking a round into the chamber.

“Did these cheap Woodruff mofos
ever
repave anything?
You’d think for the United States post office they’d skim a couple of hundred
off the annual hootenanny fund and hire a fly by night paving outfit to slap a
couple of inches of fresh blacktop down. Or at the very least scrape some
gravel off what passes for sidewalks at this end of town and fill in the
frickin’ Marianas Trench that just jacked up my lower lumbar.”

That’s the burr under his saddle?
thought Oliver, as
he gave his rifle a onceover. Safety on?
Check
. Stock collapsed to the
last stop?
Check.
He blew some dust off the scope lens and shot a sheepish
look at Daymon that said:
I’m ready as I’ll ever be
.

Daymon sighed, killed the motor, and put the truck into
Park.

“What do you have in mind?” Oliver stammered, his hands
nearly as shaky as his voice.

Knowing the others had to be close by because the Raptor and
F-650 were sitting a dozen yards away and splashing long shadows across the entry
and lower partitions of the building’s painted-over windows, Daymon said, “Get
them on the radio.”

Hands steadied somewhat, Oliver thumbed the Talk button and
said, “Anyone there?”

“Good copy,” Lev said, almost instantly.

Thinking the others were inside and had been watching as he
pulled in, Daymon said, “Ask them what’s up with the welcoming party.”

In the thirty seconds since the Chevy had taken station on
the frost-heaved blacktop, the dozen or so zombies had given up their silent
vigil at the glass double-doors and cut the distance to the truck in half.

After delivering Daymon’s message, Oliver inched away from
his door and threw his gaze to the lock post, which to his relief was in the
down position. Then, fearing Daymon might again forcibly eject him with just a
knife to take on the advancing mob, he screwed up his courage and tried beating
the dreadlocked man to the punch—or shove, whichever the case may be. “Are we
going to …”

Oliver’s question was cut off by the burst of white noise preceding
Lev saying, “You’re late.”

“Give me that,” Daymon said, snatching the Motorola from
Oliver’s hand. He thumbed the Talk button and let the radio hover near his lips
for a long three-count as he reined in the rising anger. Finally, after
consulting the clock on the dash and doing the math in his head, he said,
“We’re only twenty minutes late. I had to stop and give Oliver here an
impromptu training session.”

“Well, better late than
never
,” Lev answered. “We
tried you on the two-way but you must have been out of range. So I used the CB
and got Seth, who said you’d already come and gone from the compound. That was
thirty minutes ago … we were real close to fighting our way out of here to come
looking for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Daymon said, the sincerity in his voice coming
through loud and clear on Lev’s end. “But I have to ask … why didn’t you guys have
a plan B?”

“We
did
,” Lev said, sounding annoyed. “Then we came
to find both of the doors to the loading dock chained and locked from the
inside
.”

“And the bolt cutters are in my truck,” Daymon said slowly.
“Sorry again, bro. To make it up to you, we’ll take care of these things out
here.”

Kindness slid from her sheath with a distinct rasp and
Daymon was kneeing his door open even before the Motorola had stopped spinning on
the center tray where he’d chucked it.

Seeing the man act without any kind of warning, Oliver drew
in a lungful of the carrion-polluted air infiltrating the cab and reluctantly
cracked his own door an inch.

Most of the Zs were already vectoring for the driver’s side when
Daymon stepped onto the lot. The noise from his door slamming shut behind him
got the attention of the remaining ghouls, causing them to leave Oliver a clear
path out of the cab.

Seeing that he was all alone on his side of the truck, Oliver
flicked the AR’s selector to Fire, went into a low crouch, and looped around
the right front fender. Barrel slowly tracking with his eyes, he crabbed past
the grill and rose over the left front fender just in time to see Daymon’s scything
right-handed swing relieve a rotter of its head.

Feeling a rising tide of panic gripping him, Oliver planted
his elbows on the hood and lined the carbine up with a female rotter flanking
Daymon from the blindside. Finger tensing on the trigger, he was about to fire
when the dreadlocked dervish spun and delivered a backhanded chop from Kindness
that relieved a second and third zombie of the tops of their skulls.

Momentarily stunned by the vicious effectiveness of the
razor-sharp, yet utilitarian blade, Oliver inadvertently relaxed his trigger
finger. Which was a good thing, because in his peripheral he saw Taryn in the open
doorway flapping her arms up and down as if attempting to fly away under her
own power. In the next beat, she held a finger vertically to her lips and mouthed,
“Don’t shoot.”

Message received.
And not a moment too soon. Whereas
the sound of gunfire had no effect on zombies stopped in their tracks due to
freezing temperatures, it had just dawned on Oliver that the crash of even one
gunshot would echo and travel for blocks, bringing around more of the same
currently encircling Daymon.

Seeing Taryn draw her black blade from the scabbard on her
hip and fully expecting her, Wilson, and the others filling up the doorway to
come running to Daymon’s aid, Oliver released the breath trapped in his lungs
and let his hands go slack on the AR.

Expectations shattered by what happened next, Oliver found
himself with a snap decision to make. Either bend down to retrieve the black
blade skittering and spinning across the blacktop toward him. Or go against
Taryn’s admonition and risk drawing a horde by bringing the carbine into the
fight against the remaining dead.

In the end he found himself acting without really thinking.
Instead of going into a crouch and plucking the noisily jangling piece of metal
off the ground before it came to a complete stop, he spared himself diced
fingertips by trapping it under his boot prior to scooping it up. Next—as if
being directed by some power outside of himself—he bent at the waist and sprinted
toward the clutch of dead with the Tanto-style blade clutched firmly in his
right hand.

The only thing Oliver felt when he plunged the borrowed
blade into the nearest rotter’s concave right temple was the jagged tips of its
previously broken ribs poking him in the gut. Trying to ignore the awful sound
of Kindness sinking into flesh and bone to his left, Oliver crabbed right,
moving on to his next
victim
.

***

“Daymon was right about him,” Taryn said, peering over her
shoulder at the rest of the group crowding the doorway at her back. “He’s definitely
a
swimmer
.” When she turned back around Oliver had already used her
blade to send two more former humans to a final death.

Meanwhile, a few feet beyond the knife-wielding Gladson, Daymon
was backed up against a wall of unkempt topiary and swinging Kindness head-high
into the advancing picket of death.

Hissing, “Back off,” he wiped a thin rope of something slimy
from where it had landed on his neck and bulled backward through the dense,
chest-high shrubs, eventually making it all the way through to the sidewalk on
the opposite side.

Fixated solely on the meat barely a yard to their fore, the
mindless automatons tried to follow Daymon into the bushes and became bogged
down by the grabbing branches.

Smiling at the sight of so many zombies marching in place
and getting nowhere for their efforts, Daymon met Oliver’s gaze over the hedges.
“Get over here and finish them,” he said, eyes bugged to get the point across.

Having been wedged in the doorway next to the others and
finding it more difficult by the second to stay out of the way—as Daymon had
requested earlier when he first spoke of doing something such as this—Lev could
take no more of being a spectator to Oliver’s upper level survival course. First
off, he didn’t think the man was capable of a two-on-one encounter with a Z,
let alone a forced four-on-one melee, especially after what Daymon had told him
about the man. Cowardice and dishonesty notwithstanding, he couldn’t stand by
and let the guy die right here in front of him. No way he could sleep with that
kind of death gnawing on his conscience.

As if reading Lev’s mind, Max emitted a low growl and
squeezed his snout past Wilson’s leg.

Telling the Shepherd to “Stay,” Lev edged past the Kids, pulled
his blade from its scabbard and set off across the parking lot. But it was all
for naught, because one stride into his
charge of the light brigade
, he
saw Oliver handle the first of the remaining Zs with a short but efficient
thrust of the Tanto. And before the rotter was crumbling to the ground, its
brain scrambled by the intrusion of cold steel through cranial bone, the
compact, balding man had moved on to the threat to his immediate left. Then,
three strides into his rescue mission, Lev saw Daymon mouthing “Stay back,” while
pointing at the post office with the tip of his blood-streaked machete.

Unaware that Jamie was on his heels, Lev stopped abruptly,
causing a two-person pileup that was at once jarring and enjoyable on account
of whose flesh was pressing hard against his. “Looks like he’s got it handled,”
he whispered at about the same time Oliver was withdrawing the bloodied blade from
the third trapped creature’s temple and squaring up with the last of them.

“And then some,” Jamie said, backpedaling and drawing Lev toward
the post office door with her.

***

Winded and with nerve endings afire from the surge of
adrenaline the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since bombing down Powder
Mountain high as a kite a couple of days ago, Oliver shot Daymon a death look
and wrapped his free hand around the fourth zombie’s scrawny neck. Still
staring at the man who thirty minutes ago had kicked him from the safety of a
truck and into a one-on-one confrontation paling in comparison to this, he
tightened his grip and drew the rotter’s snapping teeth close to his face.

“Is this what you wanted?” Oliver shouted, the spittle
flying from his mouth landing on the pallid face just inches from his own. The
vein on his temple was engorged and throbbing wildly. “Because all I have to do
is let go and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Daymon shook his head, causing the spiky dreads to move in
accordance. “Not my goal,” he shouted. “I just wanted to light a fire under
you. Show you what you were capable of.”

Oliver’s arm was growing tired now. Still, not wanting to
show any sign of weakness, he held on as if his life depended on it. And it
did. Bicep burning with fatigue, he asked, “What about the stunt you pulled
back by the quarry … kicking me out of the truck?”

Daymon recognized the signs of exhaustion setting in. Sweat
beading on the man’s brow. A slight tremor beginning to show in his left arm.
“First step in the interview process. Had to happen.”

“And this?” Oliver hissed.

“Consider it your graduation party.”

A thin sheen of sweat had formed on Oliver’s upper lip.

Daymon leaned over the hedge. Sharp branches gouged his arm,
chest, and stomach. Focusing on a spot behind the Z’s ear, he raised the
machete to deliver a short downward killing stroke.

In the next beat, making lethal intervention unnecessary on
Daymon’s part, Oliver positioned the business end of the Tanto horizontally an
inch from the zombie’s face, then, inexplicably, released his grip on its
throat.

Newton’s Third Law kicked in.

First, the zombie’s toes found purchase on the rough
pavement. Then, gravity, inertia, and an unyielding desire to take a bite of
the meat that was so tantalizingly close sealed the zombie’s fate when it
lunged forward and swallowed steel.

No sensation of pain or taste transferred through long-dead nerves
and taste buds as the Tanto split the thing’s swollen tongue in two. The
tink
of steel on brittle teeth was also lost as the angular tip made contact and redirected
the blade up and through the ghoul’s soft palate, which was especially pliable
due to several weeks’ worth of decay.

Instantly the scrabbling feet went still and the grimy
fingers that had found their way into Oliver’s open mouth went limp and
slithered out. Releasing his grip on both the knife and the rotter’s throat,
Oliver stepped back and let the hedges have the corpse.

“Shish. Ka. Bob,” Daymon bellowed. “I didn’t think you had
it in you.”

With friends like these
, thought Oliver, back aching mightily
from holding off the beast from hell.

From out of nowhere Lev and Jamie appeared by Oliver’s side
and whisked him away from the killing field.

“There’s more coming from the north,” Wilson called from the
doorway.

“I’m on it,” Taryn said, stalking toward the fallen Z to
retrieve her blade.

Jamie fixed a glare on Daymon. “What the hell was all that?”
she asked heatedly, redness spreading about her cheeks and neck.

“Your man co-signed this blanket party,” Daymon said matter-of-factly.
“Which went
way
better than expected, if I don’t say so myself.” He
broke eye contact with Jamie and leveled his gaze on Lev. “You agree?”