LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (46 page)

It had been sloppy. Lazy.
 

But they were already short staffed, and after the confusion of the quake, no one counted on a small herd appearing without warning. And it had cost them.

Starr looked up, anger smoldering in her dark eyes.
 

“Redistribute the loads and pick the oldest vehicles. Park them somewhere hidden, in case we need to find and use them again. Siphon off all but a quarter tank of gas and shift the team leads accordingly.” She turned away and stared north, mind churning. Her anger and urge for revenge was battling with her sense of responsibility for her people. While she knew that Kate hadn’t cause this disaster, she never let anyone leave. Never.

Only through death could you be released from this sisterhood.
 

And Kate wasn’t a normal woman. There was something special about her. Aside from the burning desire to control her that Starr was able to repress underneath her more intense hatred, she knew that Kate represented something new. Something different. Something that, if it were harnessed and controlled, could mean more control and an edge in this battle. A battle that she and her people were slowly losing.

She had to find her.

“And Sergeant?”

The woman turned, awaiting an order.

“I want the ops officer to set up a moving search grid heading north by northeast. Movement in one hour.”

Blinking once, the woman saluted briefly and turned on her heel.

No one fucked her like this, thought Starr. She would find this bitch, and she would find out what she knew. And then, she would have some fun.

The explosion was spectacular. And a little larger than we had planned.
 

The center of the dam, of course, disappeared.
 

Weakened already by the repeated assaults by mother nature, the battered structure finally gave in, cement and steel no match for explosives and millions of tons of water eager to be released.

Chunks of concrete shot out of the dam like bullets and water poured out of the elevated position like a firehose, blasting thousands of feet horizontally before falling to the valley floor below. The small river leading toward the town and feeding into the larger stream of water ahead, already swollen with the leakage caused by the prior quakes, surged up and over its new banks.
 

Then, the rest of the dam crumbled. Almost in one single motion, every piece of concrete between the two sides of the canyon fell into the powerful surge of dark water, disappearing in the night like a sandcastle washed away in a storm.
 

In the several minutes it took for the water to remove all traces of the manmade structure and force its way into the valley below, the massive volume of water formed a tidal wave of crushing speed and size. Water that had until now been part of a placid lake in the arms of lonely mountains was now a battering a ram of implacable destruction, taking trees and rocks and hurling them forward, like a phalanx of soldiers going to war. The water and debris hit the roadway to the dam first, washing away hundreds of zombies that had nearly reached our position, taking all but a dozen with the turbulent water and surging waves. Beneath us, the town of Concrete simply ceased to exist.
 

Between the surging tidal forces of the tsunami, that had already pushed in on the town from the south, where the river was twice as wide as it had been before, and now the force of the water flooding in from above, desperate to equalize itself and find a new home in the valley below, it never stood a chance.

Nor did the thousands of zombies who were washed away in the tide of final death.

We were under no illusions that they were neutralized or that they had found a true and final end. But we knew that they were no longer a threat to us in the here and now. Maybe they would find peace in the sea, when the tidal surges final receded. Maybe they would flow up the river, and find a new home before the sea stopped pushing water against the natural flow of the river. And maybe they would sink to the bottom, writhing there for eternity until time released them.
 

I laughed once as I remembered a line I would always mutter when we wrapped a shoot: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
 

Either way, our path was now clear. For the survivors, to find a new respite. And for me, to find my friends.
 

Ethan, Rhi and I took out the final stragglers—fewer than we had feared—in a matter of seconds. Then, once the cries of the children had subsided, the noise of the explosion having rattled their cages even more than the threat of zombies and earthquakes, we made our way up and around the debris of the dam, to the shores of the lake behind us.
 

We navigated a steep drop down, avoiding the fallen trees and large chunks of cement that had been thrown off by the earthquakes and explosions, and we found the former shore of the lake, which was now nearly empty.
 

It was a humbling site. Fish floundered on the wet sand, rocks and lichen and all other manners of submerged debris were visible in the rising sun, even diffused as it was behind the clouds of ash. For a moment, I feared we would not find what we needed.
 

But a small recreational enclave, disused for months, and with no one in need of fishing boats in such a remote location, yielded the fruit we sought. Three identical blue boats with simple oars. Enough for our small group to make our way up river.
 

As Reggie and Ethan checked each boat for defects or damage, I turned to the rest of the group, where Eli stared at me, his eyes focused and bright. He spoke suddenly, his voice carrying in the hush that seemed to have taken hold of the group since the explosion.

“Where to now?”
 

I looked to Rhi and she returned the glance, eyes questioning.

“Well, I for one am heading back to find my friends. I suppose I’ll need one of the boats for that.”
 

Rhi chimed in immediately after.

“And Ethan and I are going with him. We made a promise, and he delivered. Now it’s our turn.”

Behind her, Reggie spoke up, leaning against the side of the closest boat, running his hand through his hair.
 

“Me and my kids—we’re with you too. You did us something huge back there, and I can’t hope to pay you back, but I reckon we’re stronger as a group.” He smiled widely, then. “And if your friends are anything like you, well…shit. Sounds like we got our own army of special folk.”

He paused as I smiled in response.

“You know, not like, short bus special. ‘Cause I guess that wouldn’t be so helpful. But …”

“I got you man, thanks.” I turned to the rest of the group.
 

“I can’t ask any of you to come with me. I need to find my friends—and I think it will be difficult and dangerous. We’re traveling north. Trying to find her daughter. We’re going toward Vancouver, and there are bound to be thousands of those things between us and them. You’d all be safer out here, where there are fewer of those things. I wont lie to you, with the earthquakes and the tsunami, I don’t know what we’ll find as we go further north. But we have to try.”

At this, Greg stepped forward, breaking from a conversation with Jean as his eyes flashed with annoyance.

“If it’s just the same to you, I think we’d like to go our own way. Way I see it, we barely made it out of there alive, no thanks to you.” He motioned to Susan who had begun to speak, twisting and frowning at her in irritation.
 

“No, you listen. We wouldn’t have been trapped down there if not for him. We wouldn’t have needed to go through the pump room if not for him. And I’m not sure blowing up that dam was a great idea. What if the sound brings more? What if the river isn’t safe for boats? No thanks. You guys feel free to stick to him. I was never crazy about traveling with a bunch of losers and kids anyway.”
 

Rhi moved beside me, exhaling forcefully. Reggie chuckled once before his deep voice cut off Greg’s whining meandering.

“You know what man? You go ahead. My kids have been more useful than you. At least they know when to shut up, and I don’t have to worry about them shooting me in the damn back. You take one of these boats, my treat.” He stepped away from the third boat and gestured toward it.
 

Greg stepped forward, snarling but not passing up the opportunity to leave. Jean followed behind, her eyes doubtful and her mouth twisted as if she wanted to say something, to disagree. But his hand was like iron around her wrist, and she swallowed and jumped after him.

The water made small waves against the now greatly expanded rocky shore as he pushed away.

“Good luck,” he spat. “You’ll need it. World’s no place for weak women and children. We’ll try to leave some food behind if we find some supplies. But I gotta warn you. I feel pretty hungry.”
 

He laughed at his own joke as the floated away. Beside me, Rhi turned back to the group, instantly writing off the departing pair.

“So everyone else on board? We head off north and stay together?”

Almost as one, heads began to nod and voices of affirmation surrounded me. Smiling, I nodded back.

It was time to find Kate and Ky.
 

***

“The trail is pretty fresh, I’d say. Maybe seven hours?”
 

Ethan’s voice was confident as I stared into the gloomy morning sky, grateful for the loaner pair of sunglasses I had stolen from Kate’s bag.
 

I squinted into the midday sun, made blessedly hazy by the ash in the atmosphere still spewing from the mountains, glancing toward Ethan then back to the gate into the run-down camping sites.
 

Bodies of badly mangled zeds lined the edges of the main grassy area, and the flattened foliage in the middle of the site, along with sporadic fire pits, made it clear that a large group had camped here the night before.
 

And had fought a great battle here as well. Blood was thick in several places, a testament to both sides having borne losses.
 

So far, we had made incredible time from Concrete. We had made it down river with no incidents as we rowed back to the bridge where I had last left Kate.

The remains of the structure were nearly unrecognizable after the ferry had ripped the support platforms of the bridge to shreds, but the river had become so wide with the surge of flood water by the time we reached it, that the approach was simple. The water was high and clear of large obstructions as we coasted up and simply pulled our small boats onto the pavement of the battered road that now dipped directly into the quickly flowing water.
 

It took me nearly twenty minutes to locate the packs. They were underneath two bushes on the river side of the road, and my heart swelled when I saw them.
 

They had been abandoned on purpose—no blood, no bullet holes. Neatly tucked under the foliage, like someone had intended to come back for them.
 

Looking around at the carnage of mutilated undead—some of which Ethan and Rhi had to take care of quietly before we walked through the charnel—it had been clear that something big had gone down here. It was also clear that someone with some major firepower had been part of it. In scanning the surroundings, I knew that Kate and Ky probably had needed to take off into the woods. They hadn’t had much distance between them and the herd when we were jumping off, and if they were caught between a rock and a hard place, they would have fled into the dubious protection of the woods.

I had picked up the packs and moved on, certain that they were traveling with this group. And something that large and well-armed had to leave a trail of destruction in its wake.

Three miles up from the river, we found transportation, and Eli’s precocious skill in hot-wiring came in useful again. A single pickup truck with everyone loaded in the bed. Not comfortable, but better than walking.

Further up the road from there, we found the bullet-riddled convenience store gas station, and the bodies of a man and his young son.
 

And after that, the remains of the battle at the winery.

We were on the right track.
 

But judging by the brutality and speed of this group, I was starting to worry. I had been elated to find their packs—proof enough for me that they were alive and well. It had confirmed my gut feeling, my intuition that they had survived that herd and had found a way around the throng of the undead.
 

This violence, though. Children dying at the end of a gun.

This wasn’t right.
 

And there was no accounting for what could happen to them if they had errantly joined up with a group of psychotics that marauded across the countryside murdering men and boys, like Rhi and Ethan had long suspected. The evidence was mounting, and my desire to catch up to the group to find Kate and Ky was tempered by my reluctance to put this new group of survivors in harm’s way.

“Fewer vehicles, though,” Ethan said, bringing me back to the present. His voice was curious for once, the instinct overcoming his natural pugnaciousness.
 

He squinted and pointed at some dirt tracks near the entrance.
 

“Looks like they brought in more than they left with…Reggie, take a look in that bit of forest over there, behind that shack. I’m going to wander around the back of these bathrooms and see what’s in that shock of tall bushes. We might be due for a gift from these sick fucks.”

I didn’t bother asking, as Ethan and Reggie dispersed. In the center of the campsite, the women and children had found an overturned table, and were making it a rest stop while we confirmed the trail. Rhi waved me over and I sat next to the formidable woman, listening to Margaret and Davey talking about cartoon characters.