Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City (14 page)

Tasha’s head began to swim. She was becoming overwhelmed. She was worried she would miss something. She swallowed hard and nodded her head.

“Don’t worry about it,” Williams said. “Where’s your rifle?”

“In the tent,” Tasha replied.

“Go get it and make sure it’s loaded. Your primary objective is going to be watching Tanner’s back because he will be watching mine. Oh, and keep an eye out for Cleveland. If there is anyone left in this Godforsaken military who needs someone watching his ass, it’s Private Cleveland.”

LUKE

Luke flicked a spent cigarette out of the warehouse door and into the pouring rain as he watched Matt and Ted finish setting up their ambush site. Behind him, Pete had been assigned guard duty, which apparently for the young man, was mostly screwing around and making a bunch of noise. Luke shook his head and wondered for the hundredth time how he ended up where he was.
I’m helping to set up an ambush for crying out loud. Since when do I want to ambush other survivors?
Still, he could not think of a way out of the situation so he stepped out into the rain and looked up from the road to make sure Ted and Matt could not be seen from below. “All good!” he yelled and got back in the warehouse before he was soaked.

They had decided to set up a nest in the second story of an enormous two story warehouse. The factory was as big as a football field and was the closest building to the front entrance gate with a window facing the access road. Luke looked around and could not believe all of the crap inside. It had an open lane down the center but was absolutely crammed everywhere else with boats in all stages of assembly. Ted had made camp on a balcony where he could point his gun out the window and cover whatever came through the gate and into the compound. There were still people driving cars around the city and Matt had explained that, with the bridge out, some of them might be dumb enough to try to shortcut through the shipyard.

“And then what?” Luke had asked.

“Ted blasts them,” Matt replied.

“Jesus!” Luke said. “Just like that? In cold blood?”

Matt shrugged. “Once they get in past the front gate, they’re trespassers.”

“Yeah, trespassers,” Ted said with a sick grin.

“So?” Luke asked.

“So, Ted here has the perfect angle to open fire on them. Then we can take whatever food, weapons, and supplies the trespassers have. Hopefully after a few days, we will have everything we need to drive to Zombie Free Country.”

Luke had nothing more to say after that. It was a good, albeit horrific, plan. So, Luke and Pete went up onto the balcony where Matt was helping Ted get organized. “You good?” Matt asked as Ted got comfortable.

Ted put two spare magazines of ammunition on the floor under the window. “I think so,” he replied and pointed his UZI at the road. “I’m not sure how well this gun is going to work at this range though.”

“I tell you what,” Matt said. “We’ll find you some new hardware to play with.”

Ted looked at Matt with a grin. “Now you’re talking,” he said. “Get me something I can use to turn people into hamburger.”

Good Lord,
Luke thought.

“Ok,” Matt said. “Luke, you come with me. Pete, help Ted finish getting things set up here.”

“You got it, Boss,” Pete said happily.

“And try to stay out of trouble,” Matt told them and Pete broke out into a fit of giggles.

Matt looked at Luke. “Okay,” he said. “You and I are going to go for a little walk.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Where we going?”

“To get a tow truck,” Matt said and walked toward the wooden stairs. “Grab your shit and let’s move.”

Luke shouldered his backpack and picked up his shotgun. “Which way are we going?” he asked as he followed Matt down the stairs and outside. The rain had tapered off to a fine mist and they worked open the front gate.

“Going to be a couple miles,” Matt replied. “Get this bitch all the way open so people can just drive through.”

Once the gate was completely open and the trap was set, Luke faced the wind and looked down the freeway and ran his fingers through his hair. The wind was howling and another rain storm was definitely coming their way. Luke’s eyes went to the road. It was desolate but for a few wrecks of cars and trash that had piled up.
Maybe no one will come along and get ambushed,
he thought as he tightened the straps on his backpack. He could only hope.

“Let’s move,” Matt ordered and set off down the road.

Luke took a deep breath and put his head down against the wind. “Following you,” he said and started off in a jog to keep up with Matt.

They ran for a mile, hurrying to beat the rain, when they finally came to a four lane highway. Matt paused for a minute and sat on a cement barrier. “I’m out of shape,” he said.

You think you’re out of shape,
Luke thought. He hadn’t done so much running in one day since he was in high school. He struggled to breathe while he lit a cigarette and looked up at the sky. Dark ugly clouds had gathered, making it feel later in the day than it actually was.

"You hear that?" Matt asked.

"What?" Luke said and listened. A moment later he heard a thumping sound and it was getting closer. “Is that a helicopter?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Those suckers really draw zombies, man. It had better not be heading our way or we could be in deep shit.”

Luke looked up at the sky. The
thump-thump-thump
of the rotor blades was definitely coming their way.

“Shit, there it is,” Matt said and pointed west.

Luke looked and saw a military helicopter, a few city blocks to the west, heading straight for them. “Think it’s flying low like that on purpose?” Luke asked.

“Hell if I know,” Matt said. The helicopter was flying along the line of the highway, barely above rooftop height. It had a red cross on a white square.
Medical. But something is definitely wrong with it,
Luke thought.
He had seen choppers fly before and they usually had their nose down and flew fast. This one looked … sick. Suddenly it listed to one side and without warning, dropped straight down from the sky. It fell two stories and crashed in the middle of the highway. “Son of a bitch!” Matt yelled.

Luke waited for an explosion but it didn’t come.
Must be out of gas
, Luke thought. “Want to check it out?” he asked.

“What? Are you kidding? Zombies will be all over it any second.”

“Yeah, but that’s a medical chopper. I’ll bet there are medical supplies.”

“And your point is?” Matt asked.

“Morphine? Oxycodone?” Luke said. Matt’s eyes lit up. Luke was not a junkie by any stretch but numbing out a bit these days sounded pretty damn good.

“Following you,” Matt said with a grin.

Luke held his shotgun in both hands and ran down the highway with Matt close behind him. It did not take long to reach the crash site, but Matt had been right, the noise had brought zombies. A mob had been following the chopper down the street and more were coming out of nearby buildings.

“Oh man, I don’t like this,” Matt said.

“Just give me one minute,” Luke replied.

“There better be some good stuff in there,” Matt said. “I’m not dying out here for a box of Band-Aids.”

Luke reached the downed chopper and saw a soldier in a green jumpsuit had been thrown from the helicopter during the crash. The fall had obviously killed him. Jumping over the body, Luke ducked into the craft and saw two pilots in the front. One was still alive, but was dazed and coughing blood. Luke looked at a large piece of metal protruding from the man’s chest and knew he was as good as dead. Luke ignored the first pilot and looked at the second who was slumped in his seat with his head down. “Hey,” Luke said. “You alive, buddy?” The second pilot did not respond.
I should check for a pulse,
he thought but then Matt was beside him.

“Zombies,” Matt said. “They’re everywhere, man. We need to get moving.”

Luke knew Matt was right. He only had his shotgun and baseball bat and there was no way the two of them were going to be able to hold off the mob of zombies. “Ok,” Luke said and checked the back of the chopper. There was an M60 machine gun on a tripod that he would have loved to take, but he knew it would be too heavy. Pulling open cabinets, he took a quick look for any supplies. “Almost done,” he yelled. Luke didn’t know what he was looking for, but there wasn’t much to see. There was some kind of basket which he had seen helicopters use on television, where they would pick people up out of the water and stuff. There were some boxes of ammunition for the M60, but no actual medical supplies.

“Anything?” Matt asked.

Pissed off, Luke kicked the empty basket. He was beyond disappointed. “No, God dammit,” he swore. “Stupid waste of time. There ain’t shit.”

“Remind me to kick your ass over this later,” Matt said. “Let’s go!” They ran across the street and were just climbing over a cement barrier on the far side of the road when they heard gunshots coming from the helicopter. They ducked down behind the barrier and turned back to watch. The zombies had overrun the helicopter and began to tear apart the two pilots and the soldier on the ground. The second pilot was still alive, screaming, and was shooting the zombies desperately with a handgun.

“We could help,” Luke said.

“It’s not our problem,” Matt said.

I should have done something,
Luke thought. Now it was too late. Resigned, he looked at Matt and wondered if he had time for a smoke. “How much further?” he asked.

“Just up the road,” Matt replied. “There’s an industrial park just north of here and on the far side of that is a wrecking yard.”

“And there will be a tow truck there?” Luke asked.

“I hope so,” Matt said. “I’m banking on it.”

Luke stared at the feeding frenzy at the helicopter. The gunfire and screaming had finally stopped. “Then let’s go before any of those things notice us,” he said and without another word, they turned their backs on the zombie horde and started off at a jog again.

They ran hard into the fading light and found the industrial park, which was mostly a mass of train tracks. They slowed down and were cautious around the box cars. Zombies could be anywhere and Luke had seen enough of them for one day. Plus, there were other survivors to worry about. One never knew who or what else might be hiding in one of the containers.
Could always be another redneck hillbilly with an Uzi,
Luke thought. Once they reached the north end of the park, they climbed over a tall fence and landed in the wrecking yard.

Luke lit a much needed cigarette and looked around. The yard had a simple layout. There was one huge office building that acted as the gateway into the rest of the site. Beyond that were rows upon rows of wrecked cars and trucks. Beyond the wrecks was an open air warehouse full of car parts which had obviously been stripped out of the vehicles. In the center of it all, was a small crane with a cable extending from the arm and steel jaws lying on the ground. “Before the zombies, I worked here part time,” Matt said, catching his breath. “My parole officer owns the place and as long as I worked jobs for him he took care of me.”

“What kind of jobs?” Luke asked, quickly finishing his cigarette and using it to light another.

“Mostly stealing shit,” Matt said. “It worked out pretty good. As long as I kept product coming in, I could do anything I wanted. Go anywhere. All that shit.”

Luke nodded like he understood. Early on, Luke had told Matt he had been in prison for a while for grand theft auto. It was all bullshit. Truth was, he had never been in prison. He had never so much as gotten a speeding ticket and he certainly never had to deal with things like being on parole. The lie had simply been a way to make him seem more dangerous, something especially important to get across to freaks like Ted. Luckily, he had heard stories and seen enough shit on television to know that not everyone in the system played by the same rules. “Sounds like a crooked bastard,” Luke said.

“Yeah, the guy's name was Officer Park,” Matt said. “And, yeah. He was. You ready?”

Luke wasn’t really ready. He was tired and wished they had done something to help that pilot back at the helicopter crash, but he knew there wasn’t anything that could be done about it now. “Yeah, I’m good,” he lied.

“Come on,” Matt said, and with guns ready, they headed for the garage.

They found the front door kicked in. “Shit,” Luke said under his breath.

“Stay behind me,” Matt whispered and Luke followed him inside. They stopped just inside the door and let their eyes adjust to the darkness. “There’s a staircase over there. Leads to the basement,” Matt whispered and nodded to the left. “It’s hard to see if you don’t know it’s there. It’s where my parole officer used to live off and on, mostly when his ex-wife was hunting for him to pay child support. He had a little apartment down there and everything.”

“We gonna go check it out?” Luke asked.

“Later,” Matt said. “I want to look for the tow truck first. You ready?”

“Ready when you are,” Luke said, although he still was not. Something just didn’t feel right and he had a bad feeling about the whole garage. Matt led the way, his pistol stuck out in front of him with one hand and the sledgehammer on his shoulder. They skirted past rows of tires and stacks of parts that were once worth too much to let sit out in the rain.
But now aren’t worth jack shit,
Luke thought. The whole place was a mess. All of the windows had been boarded up and a side door had crates stacked up against it. On the far end, a large white tow truck was positioned behind a rolling garage door which was closed and re-enforced with two-by-fours.