LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (23 page)

“What’s that lake?” I asked absently, taking in a large crack in the dam on the eastern side that had already grown to nearly two feet in width, water gushing freely through the gap. According to Ethan and Rhi, that crack had been barely three inches wide when they left.
 

“Lake Shannon,” Ethan said. “Mostly fishing and camping through there—it’s national park territory north of here.”
 

“Where’d you come out when you left?” I scanned the wall at its lowest point, searching for unseen doors or hatches.

Rhi chuckled, finishing a granola bar and tossing a small scrap to Romeo, who wagged once as he leapt into the air to grab the sweet morsel.
 

“It’s there. You just can’t see it because it’s under about five feet of water. That lake is itching to come into this little valley, and when it does, it’s going to bring about a hundred feet of water with it. That town is going to be under water, and if we’re still down there when it goes, we’re goners. That’s why we’ve got to get our people out.”

“I can’t make out the western entrance …”
 

“They’re there,” said Rhi, interrupting me. “They’re everywhere. That damn siren brought ‘em up from town. They might not know where the door is, but there were eight hundred people in this town before the infection, and as you can see, they all appear to have stuck around. No, that siren was a dinner bell for them, and they know it.”

“What about the east side? I can see the eastern shore of the river near the dam—it looks clear.”

Ethan shook his head, spitting to the side. The mucus hit a large rock with a heavy splatting sound.

“Nope. There’s a gravel pit on the other side of that dam, big construction crew was over there when this thing hit. Maybe forty men. They got trapped on their site, and most of ‘em turned. Them and some others—campers and maintenance workers from the dam mostly—are still wandering around on the other side, locked in on the other side of a fence. They’re between the dam and the old logging road that tracks around the lake. Even if we got out that side, the terrain’s too rocky to come down on the river side, and that old logging road isn’t the road you want to be on if you meet any company. It’s long, crappy, and narrow.” He considered it for a moment. “If it even exists any more.”

“You think the roadway on top of the dam is still good?”
 

He shrugged while Rhi cocked her head and held her hand out, rocking it back and forth.

“It’ll take your weight, but the way we figure it, that dam’s ready to go at any point. Wouldn’t take much. It’s a wonder it’s lasted this long, but we reckon it was built right.”

Not unlikely, I thought. Anything in this area probably had seismic activity factored in when it was being built. Although I supposed that they never contemplated anything like what we had already seen here. Unconsciously, my eyes came away from the binoculars and strayed to the flaming orange glow of Mount Baker in the distance, the fitful shadows from its spewing anger still visible through the swirling ash. To the south, I knew that it was joined by several other friends, all making their rage known.
 

I shook my head and sat down, wincing at the slight twinge of pain from my leg. There were hundreds of those things in the town, and if Rhi and Ethan knew the area—which I didn’t doubt—there were probably hundreds more strung out between town and the dam.
 

I needed to pull them away from the dam. But the terrain wasn’t friendly. With mountains on the west and a river to the east, there was only one way for them to be drawn away from the dam. That was south, toward the larger river. Toward the town.
 

Toward us.
 

So we would have to pull them away from the dam, toward the town. But even assuming we could simultaneously pull them down, then get past them and into the dam, how would we escape from the dam if we had just drawn hundreds more zombies into the town, blocking our exits to the south?
 

I hated thinking. It was one of the worst things about the apocalypse.
 

Staring at Romeo as I considered the problem, I watched as he lapped at a small bowl of water Ethan put on the ground for him, smiling briefly as he pawed it, accidentally tipping it over and sending the contents running down the edge of the ravine. Ethan cursed good-naturedly and filled the bowl again as I watched the water trickle over the rocks.
 

Then I smiled.
 

The town of Parkersville, aside from being the home of one of the largest industrial wine making operations in Western Washington, didn’t have much else to recommend it. The winery was by far the largest group of buildings in the town, and the large machines and impressive storehouses and production facilities dominated one entire side of the arterial route leading into the area.
 

On the west side of the road, vineyards stretched to the west, while further on, a small elementary school sat adjacent to the road, vacant windows staring at the large factory accusingly. A lonely playground, now overgrown with long grass and weeds, lent the entire scene a maudlin overtone that wasn’t necessary.

Not with all the zombies and whatnot.
 

Kate kept her head down as she looked into the haze of ash and gun smoke. At the front of the truck, Starr was shouting orders into a shoulder microphone held in her left hand, while the right hand clutched her weapon with authority. Her driver hadn’t left the idling vehicle, and Kate held up a hand to Ky, who was eager to dismount.

“I can help,” she said urgently, looking toward the front of the column.
 

“No, just stay put. It could just be a small group.” Kate turned to the front again as a blood-curdling scream ripped into the air. Starr cursed and turned to Kate, grabbing her arm and pulling her forward.

“You’re with me.” Shouting over her shoulder, she ordered the cars in the rear of the column to stay alert and motioned for the women in the rear echelon to come forward. Fifteen women marched forward out of the snowy haze, weapons ready. The squealing tires of the rear guard humvee startled Kate as it plowed past.

The head of the column had stalled out at the main gate to the winery, where Evan had sealed the creatures inside. A small stain of his blood was even still visible on the weather beaten concrete, had the group of survivors known to look for it.
 

The low visibility, combined with the increasingly heavy ash fall, made it so that the front of the column wasn’t quite visible from the middle, where Captain Starr and Kate and Ky were riding. It also meant that the lead vehicle’s gunners couldn’t quite appreciate the true extent of the threat when they had begun firing at what appeared at the time to be a group of twenty—a manageable engagement for a fifty cal machine gun and an armored truck.

When that twenty grew to fifty, and that fifty grew to three hundred, the situation grew more dire. No one could count the numbers, as the creature disappeared and reappeared in the haze of ash-fall.
 

And no one had the time to count anyway. They were too busy fighting suddenly for their lives.

The lead humvee fired until the creatures were too thickly packed around it. The massive rounds from the top mounted machine gun did their damage, with more than thirty corpses lying prone or twitching before the large vehicle.

But it wasn’t enough.
 

Within minutes, the herd had surrounded the truck and dead, eager hands were reaching up to the gunner’s cupola, forcing the gunner—a Sergeant named Jane Sherman—back into the cabin of the truck.

“Too hot—we gotta get some distance. Can you move up and turn back in?”

The driver’s hands moved quickly on the wheel, pulling it sharply to the left and trying to move the vehicle forward. In the narrow two lane road, amidst a herd of creatures, the truck was immobilized against the surge of bodies.
 

“Can’t move it. This is it,” she said, grimacing as the creatures outside started to slam their rotten arms and faces against the reinforced glass and metal of the humvee. Behind them, the firing from the rest of the column had intensified, and Starr’s voice came to them over the radio.

“We’re coming to you. Give me a sitrep.”

Her voice was calm, but the gunshots were coming fast and furiously from the other side of the channel. From the rooftop cupola, Sherman unloosed another heavy barrage of fire, even as she slapped away several grasping hands.
 

The driver, a specialist named Shonda Fray, could barely control her anxiety. Another face pressed against the glass of her window, bloody cheek spreading fluid and pus against the grimy glass. As she watched, a tooth caught on the edge of the bulletproof glass and pulled slowly away from the blackened gum.
 

“We’re, uh, we’re overrun. Still in the fight, but we’re drawing a crowd.”

Above, Sherman cursed and yelled once, then dropped into the cabin.

“They’re going to be on top in about a minute. We need to move, now!”
 

Outside, the intense firing had drawn many of the creatures to the humvee—in fact, it was the only reason that anyone in the column had time to leave their cars before they were overrun.
 

“Get inside the vehicle and stand fast,” came Starr’s only reply.

It was three hundred feet to the head of the column, and Kate followed Starr with her eyes scanning her surroundings—through the ash she could see movement and the volleys of gunfire intensified as they moved forward, gathering women as they did. Kate took the time to pay attention to the crew. There was no bias toward age or race. No apparent exclusions or divisions between the military and non-military. Just one glaring omission. Not a single man.

They had reached the third car in the convoy and Starr was on her radio, speaking with the lead humvee. Suddenly, the shadows in the ash came alive. There were dozens of them. Then scores.
 

No, Kate realized.
 

There were hundreds.
 

She brought up her carbine and knew they were outmatched. Around her, the gunfire erupted with a new ferocity. She started to site targets and pull the trigger, finding a position near the closest car that provided cover for her left side.
 

A piercing shriek ripped through the gunfight, even as Starr was motioning the group up. The SUV that had been following the humvee was the next in line to greet the oncoming horde. Distracted by the humvee, the creatures now had new targets to pursue—the twenty women that were marching toward them, rifles blazing in the falling ash.
 

Like snow-covered demons from the fog of hell, the zombies appeared, many coated with a layer of ash, as if they had just emerged from the pit of a raging fire.
 

The shriek ended suddenly, and Kate heard a sound that tore at her soul. She cried out in pain as the voice of a little girl screamed into the fight.

“Help me!”
 

A door slammed. An engine roared.
 

And the SUV behind the lead humvee flew forward like a drunk teenager was driving it, careening into scores of creatures before turning sharply toward the winery entrance and plowing through the chain link fence. It got twenty feet into the courtyard before the gate—which had been caught under the grill of the large SUV—eventually dragged it to a stop, sparks flying out from underneath.
 

Kate watched it plow into the ashy haze and instinct took over.
 

Her mind flooded with pictures of her daughter. At Christmas, opening gifts with a smile on her face; in the pool, the snorkel held upside down; wearing her Halloween costume and asking for candy. Her little voice, her weird questions and her tiny smile. Tears flooded from her eyes and she forgot where she was. She forgot who she was.

All she knew was that she was a mother. And that a little girl needed her.
 

“Move forward,” Starr was yelling, and the rifle fire intensified. “Grady, Hawkins…Hey! Kate! Get the fuck back into the column!”
 

Kate was already moving to the right, finding the chain link fence merely ten feet before a small group of zombies that had been pressed to the side of the road. She took a running leap and grabbed the top of the fence, pulling herself up as soon as her fingers hit the bar. She cursed as the metal cut into her hands, but with her strength she was able to virtually vault over the eight foot obstruction, leaving the creatures on the other side—and Captain Starr—utterly bewildered.
 

“What the fuck,” Starr had time to whisper, before she was forced to dismiss the maneuver and was pulled back to the battle.
 

The courtyard of the winery was virtually empty, with only a few straggling creatures making their way through the ash, desperate to find their way to the sound of food outside, fighting for its life. But the ash was thick and it was confusing. For humans and for the undead. Their already poor eyesight was confounded by the thick cover, and they stumbled about, ears bringing them to the fence, toward where Kate had vaulted the metal barrier.

She took two creatures down at a dead run, barely slowing, her machete leaping into her hand and then into the necks of the approaching dead. Her rifle was stowed again. Silence was her best friend—especially in the falling ash.
 

The SUV was sitting abandoned twenty feet from the entrance, and she lowered herself behind a row of round wooden containers, peering over the top to scan for the children. The driver’s side door was open, a streak of thick red blood covering the door and the broken driver’s side window.
 

Scores of creatures were still plodding toward the entrance, following the herd as they moved to the main column outside. But a dozen of them had followed a different trail—Kate watched as they shambled along, following another target into a large warehouse building against the front fence line.