Rotter Apocalypse (26 page)

Windows came downstairs to find Miriam standing in front of the stove cooking scrambled eggs and the kids gathered around the table eating. She inhaled. Why was it that food always smelled better when someone else cooked it?

Miriam peeked over her shoulder. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Windows stepped over to the stove. “I’m surprised you’re still up after pulling the midnight shift.”

“I won’t be for long. I walked the perimeter with Denning, and when I got back to the house the kids were up wanting breakfast.” Miriam lifted the skillet off the burner. “I made some for you, too,”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“How many rotters were on the perimeter?” Windows whispered.

“Only three. Each day there’s less.”

“Thank God.”

“I know.” Miriam tilted the skillet over a plate and emptied out the eggs. “
Bon appetit
.”

“
Merci.
” Windows took the plate and sat down at the table with the children. “Good morning, guys.”

“Good morning, Aunt Windows,” said Rebecca.

Philip waved.

“Can we go out and play today?” asked Cindy.

“We’ll see.”

“Please. We’ve been stuck in the house for two days.”

“I said, we’ll see.”

“Pleeeaase.”

“They’re going stir crazy,” said Miriam as she cleaned the skillet in the sink.

“Is it okay with you?”

“I trust you.”

The two little girls bounced in their chairs.

“Calm down,” Windows chuckled. “Let me finish breakfast first.”

“Okay,” Cindy said with dramatic exasperation.

When Miriam bent over the table and gathered the kids’ dirty dishes, Windows asked, “Where’s Denning?”

“Not sure. He had some chores to do. He said he wanted to check on the combine, whatever that means.”

“I know where he is.”

Miriam washed the dirty dishes while Windows finished her breakfast. Five minutes later, after Miriam had gone upstairs to bed, Windows grabbed her automatic weapon and hunting knife. She herded the children outside with an admonition to be quiet and stay close, knowing that would do as much as good as telling Walther not to shit in the pasture. Only when she promised them that they could feed the chickens if they listened to her did the kids settle down.

After leaving the chicken coop, Windows led the kids to the pasture. As expected, she found Denning working on the engine to the combine. Walther stood nearby, curious about what his owner was doing, his tail swishing every few seconds. Upon seeing the children approach, the bull wandered over to the fence in expectation of being fawned over. Cindy led the way, rushing to the fence and making sure she got to him first. As the children jostled each other to pet Walther, who basked in the attention, Windows hopped the fence and walked over to Denning.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

Denning put down his wrench and sat facing her. “Quiet morning. We found only three of those things along the fence.”

“Miriam told me. Hopefully the horde has passed us by.”

“Let’s hope so. We’ll check later this afternoon.” Denning glanced over at the children. “I see you’re playing day care today.”

“Only so Miriam can get some rest.” She gestured toward the combine. “I thought you fixed that thing a few days ago.”

“I did.”

“So what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. Tinkering with it gives me something to do. I have a lot of free time on my hands now that you’re here.”

Cindy ran over and hopped up onto the fence. “Good morning, Mr. Denning.”

“Morning, Cindy. Why aren’t you petting Walther?”

“I want to give Rebecca and Philip a chance.”

Windows crossed over to the fence and rubbed Cindy’s head. The girl ducked out of the way and rolled her eyes. “Mom, stop that.”

“Get Rebecca and Philip,” said Windows. “We’re heading back to the house.”

“Can’t we stay outside a little longer?”

“Yes, but in the backyard close to the house.”

Cindy moaned in disapproval.

“Do as your mother says,” said Denning. “I’ll let you guys feed the chickens later and say good night to Walther.”

“Okay.” Cindy ran off to get the others.

“Are you heading back?” Windows asked Denning.

“Give me a minute.”

Denning packed up his tools and headed for the fence. Windows saw him wince when climbing over the top with his toolbox, and become winded when he got on the other side. However, since it didn’t seem to slow him down, she didn’t express any concern in front of the children, although she made a mental note to ask him about it later.

Gathering up the kids, Windows led the way back to the house.

Robson waited for the sun to be at its highest before talking to his group. Although he knew none of the vampires would be out during the day, he allowed his paranoia to get the best of him. If Vladimir and the others suspected what he planned, he’d fail and all their deaths would be in vain.

“So what’s this about?” Corey asked snidely. “We gonna get a pep talk about not joining the bloodsuckers?”

“Shut up!” Roberta snapped. She focused her attention on Robson. “What do we want to talk about?”

Robson took a deep breath. He pretty much knew how this would go. “Corey’s being an asshole, but he’s right. I want to make a final plea to all of you not to join the coven tonight.”

“Screw you, man.” Corey threw his hands in the air and rolled his eyes. “I’m not getting involved in this game of yours with the vamps.”

“It’s not a game.”

“Yes, it is. And we’re the fucking pawns. You two are whacking your dicks at each other because you threw him out of your little group back in Maine and now he wants to take your people from you. When the two of you get together, you can choke on the testosterone. Vladimir doesn’t care if we join him or feed him, which I can live with. He’s a vampire. We put our trust in you, and you don’t care about us either.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Robson saw Magda and Yukiko nodding in agreement. “That’s not true.”

“Really? What have you done to get us out of here? When there were nine of us, enough to put up a fight against these things, did you come up with a plan of action? Or an escape plan? Jesus Christ, man. You haven’t even asked them to give us food and water. We’ve been living on that one pail of water the vamps brought us the first night.”

Robson took a deep breath. “What good would any of that have done? We’re too weak to fight them, and with our cut Achilles’ tendons we’d never get away.”

“So you decided to give up and sacrifice all of us to the vampires?” Corey huffed.

Robson hesitated, trying to convince himself to tell the others what he intended, to give them a reason why he was asking them to make this sacrifice. He could not bring himself to do it. “I know it seems that way, but it’s not.”

“Bullshit,” said Corey.

“Mike,” said Yukiko, “you must understand. We’re scared, and we’re looking to you to tell us what to do. And all you’ve been telling us is that we should allow ourselves to be drained like James and Edward. How do you expect us to go along with that?”

“Because becoming part of the coven is worse,” said Robson.

“Why?” asked Magda. “It sure is less scary than being fed on, and in return we’re immortal. How can that be worse?”

“It is. Trust me.”

“We want to,” said Roberta. “I’ve known you for a year, and you’ve always been straight with me and everyone else in camp. This is different. You’re asking us to trust you, to accept a horrible death, without telling us why it’s important. You have to be up front with us.”

Robson met Roberta’s gaze, his eyes expressing his determination. “I can’t.”

“Fuck this shit,” Corey mumbled.

Yukiko and Magda were crestfallen. Roberta shook her head. “I expected better from you.”

The others avoided making eye contact, not that Robson could blame them. He was asking them to accept a painful, terrifying death based only on his good faith, which he knowingly violated. He felt confident Roberta would probably stand by him, although he doubted any of the others would. He couldn’t do anything about it now, other than hope that when this was over anyone who survived might understand why he took this course of action and forgive him. However, he doubted that.

Robson couldn’t even forgive himself.

Natalie stood on the ridge of the Diablo Range overlooking the east slope, using her hand to shade her eyes from the noon sun. Down below sat the farms and towns that stretched along the San Joaquin Valley and, beyond that, the Sierra Nevada Mountains. From up here, the view didn’t look quite so apocalyptic. According to military intelligence, when the outbreak had spread through the Bay area, traffic jammed up around the passes before evacuees could make it across the Diablo Range. A few of the larger cities to the north, such as Sacramento, suffered the same fate as San Francisco. However, for the most part, those living in the valley had a chance to flee. A few buildings or city blocks had been burned out, but there were no signs of the societal collapse she had witnessed traveling across the country. Not even highways and roads packed with abandoned vehicles. If there were hordes of rotters in the valley, she couldn’t see them from up here, which was a good thing. Natalie wondered if the evacuation from the valley meant it had been spared from the worst of the apocalypse. She would find out tomorrow. The top of the range was the farthest line of advance for today.

Taking back San Jose from the living dead had changed the dynamics of the drive across the country. Additional troops were being deployed daily, with the new recruits clearing out major pockets of rotter activity while those who had already seen combat were diverted to less-stressful mop-up operations. The main campaign now broke into two drives. One would push north between the east bank of San Francisco Bay and the Diablo Range, with Berkeley as the first objective. Once Berkeley had been recovered, the drive north would split into two, with the primary push being toward Sacramento and then due north up the valley until it reached the national forests around Redding. The secondary push would move along the West Coast to Eureka. At this point, the northern advance would establish a defensive position until it linked up with the troops heading south from the Pacific Northwest. The second drive would move south along the coast toward Santa Barbara where the Sierra Nevadas swung west and connected with the coast. Here they would make contact with units pushing south through the San Joaquin Valley and join with the forces fighting to regain control of Los Angeles and the territory south to the Mexican border. Once these three major drives had linked up, the campaign would push east and head across country.

Those units that had been involved in the cleaning out of San Francisco and San Jose had been ordered to the top of the Diablo Range. Tomorrow morning, they would sweep through the valley to the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, establish a northern perimeter running along Route 132 through Modesto, and begin their push south toward Santa Barbara. Mesle had told them that being assigned this area of operation was their reward for what they had gone through in San Francisco and San Jose. Natalie stared down into the valley below, thinking that maybe this time they had gotten a break.

The rest of the squad joined her, with Ari and Doreen on Natalie’s right and Mesle and Stephenson beyond them.

Mesle ran his hand across his scalp to wipe off the sweat. “There’s our target for tomorrow.”

“Which one?” Doreen asked.

He pointed to a small town a few miles south of Modesto that sat directly across from them in the center of the valley. “That’s the town of Delhi. Air recon reports no signs of revenant activity there, so it should be an easy day.”

“Good,” Stephenson said.

“It looks so peaceful down there,” Ari said.

“Don’t get overconfident. Looks can be deceiving.” Mesle took a step forward and raised his voice so the rest of the squad could hear him. “Okay, people. This is as far as we’re going today, so find a good place to set up camp. I doubt we’ll have to worry about revenants up here, but to be on the safe side I want guard shifts throughout the night. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Outstanding. Now get moving.”

As the others sauntered off, the three Angels still studied the valley.

Ari moved close to Natalie so their shoulders touched. “It’d be a peaceful place to settle down once this is over.”

“Hell, no.” Natalie shook her head. “I want a place out in the middle of nowhere, preferably in the mountains, where there’s no one around for miles. If things go to shit again, I don’t want to be surrounded by tons of people.”

“I’ll go anywhere you want to.” Ari slid her hand into Natalie’s. Their fingers interlocked, and Ari squeezed affectionately. Natalie wanted to kiss Ari, although not out here where everyone could see.

“Sorry.” Doreen started to walk away. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” Natalie said.

“I didn’t know you two were….”

“Since last night,” said Ari.

“Good for you. I’m glad you two found some happiness in the middle of all this. God knows how long it’ll be before anyone else will be happy again.”

Natalie squeezed Ari’s hand before breaking the grip, and then maneuvered so she could put her arms around both women’s shoulders. “Let’s set up camp and enjoy the rest of the day. We’ve got a lot of walking ahead of us tomorrow.”