Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed (19 page)

Thankful for the full-face helmet, Gregory swiped the visor
clean of snow and then nosed the sled off the fire lane and parked it under the
low-hanging branches of a massive fir. He killed the engine, dismounted, and
then shed his rifle, backpack, and helmet.

He sat with his back to the snow machine’s paddle-shaped
tread and ate a snack of venison jerky and dried berries given to him by Helen
three days ago. After poring over the map again, he decided he was close enough
to his imaginary X to strike out on foot.

Before setting out on the solitary trek, he policed up a
dozen flat rocks and erected them into a conical pile he heard was called a
cairn. He threw a shudder as he remembered a horror flick called the
Blair
Witch Project
. What a bitch it would be if he had to deal with more than
just the walking dead during his hike. Always a little superstitious, he
scanned his surroundings and conceded they were strikingly similar to the woods
the students were traipsing around when they came upon the trail markers that
turned out to be harbingers of the evil they’d soon face. He regarded his cairn
and thought the only harbinger this represented was cold food coupled with a
long night alone in the woods. However, superstition or no, he left the
foot-high cairn standing so he could find the sled if his tracks became
completely snow-filled.

With vestiges of that jittery, fright-filled, docu-style
movie running through his head, he pulled a green stocking cap on, hoisted the
heavy pack up, and slipped his arms through the padded straps. He shouldered
his rifle, then adjusting everything for the slog ahead, tightened straps and
made sure the Glock semi-auto pistol was snugged securely in the drop-thigh
holster on his leg. A cursory check told him that his boot prints and trio of
tracks made by the sled were the only things pointing to his being here. And
judging by the dark clouds slowly edging out the watery sun, that evidence was
sure to be erased before long.

***

During this, her third trip upstairs in an hour, Helen saw
something she couldn’t write off as a figment of her imagination. It was a
flare of light right in the center of Ray’s brambles. It blossomed briefly like
a struck match then was gone. As far as she knew, rocks didn’t smoke.

“Ray … someone’s smoking in your brambles.”

“Are you sure, Helen?” he asked in a skeptic’s voice. He put
down the oiled rag. Set the AR-15 parts aside still disassembled and pushed
away from the table. “Keep an eye out. I want to check the front property and
the road before we do anything.”

“I don’t want you to go it alone, Ray.”

“It’ll be fine, dear,” he called over his shoulder. He
donned a coat and buttoned it up. Forgoing the shotgun, he grabbed a carbine
off the hook by the door, snatched up his walking cane and left the house
without another word.

He drove down to the State Route, the old Chevy pickup,
carried by gravity, slipping, sliding, and steering itself as the snow-filled
ruts grabbed the tires in their muddy embrace.

After making it the half-mile to the two-lane and adding
only a few minor scrapes to the already fingernail-raked powder blue paint, Ray
left ‘Ol Blue running and, with his wooden and brass cane in one hand, stepped
onto the firm level ground and slammed the door shut behind him. Looking left,
he saw nothing but a white ribbon of road curling and rising south. To his
right, he counted roughly a dozen bodies languishing in the right lane. A small
amount of snow had collected in the creases of the dead’s clothing. Their eye
sockets and open mouths had accepted all the snow they could, leaving the
pallid upturned faces looking like plaster of Paris death masks. Nearby and
nearly covered over were two pairs of tire tracks, the ones running off to the
north barely discernable. However, an identical pair following the road up and
over the rise south looked fairly fresh.

With the ornate duck head cane poking neat little holes in
the snow, Ray approached the tangle of death and saw that some of the corpses
were cleaved in half while others had merely been decapitated. He approached a
pair of severed heads. Strangely, like they had been arranged and left in view
as a kind of warning, both rested with an ear to the ground, one peering east
and the other west.

The sword came out of its oak scabbard with a
snik
and Ray used its needle-sharp tip to make certain the severed heads wouldn’t
become deadly Omega-carrying land mines once the thaw happened. There was a
soft squelch and a grating sound of metal on bone as he ran the thin blade
through each one, sticking it all the way into each upturned ear until he felt
the point meet the unforgiving road. He left them as he found them, silent
sentinels keeping watch for all eternity—or at least, he thought with a sad
chuckle—until a passing vehicle pasted them to a slushy pulp.

He cleaned his blade by sticking the tip into the firm soil
just beyond the shoulder. Then he sheathed the sword and, relying on it for
balance, walked back to his truck with two of his questions answered. Based on
the fair amount of snow drifted against the bodies, he concluded the monsters
on the road were culled by Dregan prior to his unannounced and wholly
unnecessary
welfare
check.

Before turning back to the idling truck, Ray inspected the
tracks. The fact that the ones heading south towards Bear River held less snow
than their identical northbound counterparts told him that Dregan was most
likely back home and enduring the end to another day with no kind of closure.

He’d be back, of that Ray was certain. And he and Helen
would remain neutral, of that Ray was unwavering.

So that left the identity of the watcher in the field the
only unanswered question of the day. And if Helen had her way—as she usually
did—Ray figured that by hook or by crook they’d be making the fella or gal’s
acquaintance before long and entirely on their own terms.

As the Mack’s transmission geared down for what seemed to
Cade like the fifth time in as many yards, the extra weight in the box and
angle of attack caused the plow blade to momentarily lift off the road. At the
apex of the hill and finally free of gravity’s strong embrace, he pulled the
rig close to the right guardrail and engaged the air brakes. With the rattle
clatter of the diesel serenading him, he looked out over downtown Huntsville
and saw a scene that instantly reminded him of pictures he had seen in history
books of cities firebombed in World War II. Albeit on a smaller scale, he
conceded, much like Dresden or Tokyo or Nagasaki, very little in Huntsville was
left standing. Down near the water, in the abbreviated business core, was an
L-shaped building constructed with what from a distance looked like cement
block. The yellow exterior was tinged black, yet the windows and steel roof
were intact. Somehow it had escaped the conflagration that had engulfed most of
the one- and two-story buildings for blocks around.

East of downtown, on a sparsely vegetated hill, a trio of
grand houses—Painted Ladies was what he thought they called them in San
Francisco—still stood defiantly. Untouched by fire and facing west, the windows
fronting the two-story homes reflected the shimmering pewter waters of the
Pineview Reservoir and the snow-covered Wasatch Range off to the west.

Taryn’s voice came over the radio. “Should I shut it down
here to save fuel?” she asked.

Not wanting to rely too much on the two-way radios in case
someone was listening in, Cade rolled down his window and waved her forward.
Once she had pulled up alongside, he met her eyes, wagged his head slowly
side-to-side and mouthed, “We’re not stopping here.” He turned away and, as he
did, heard brakes engaging and motor noise but focused his attention solely on
the town itself. Because, from the moment he’d swept his gaze northwest, he was
struck with a familiar and unshakable sensation, a cold chill that was
spreading its tendrils from the pit of his stomach to the base of his neck.
Other runners were caressing his rib cage and sending gooseflesh rippling back
and forth there. And in that moment he’d never been more certain in his life that
he was the watched, not the watcher. He ripped the binoculars from off the seat
next to him then quickly scanned the town left-to-right starting with a trio of
sailboats wallowing on the reservoir’s choppy surface, moving over the bare
concrete pads and skeletal remains of downtown before finally settling the
Steiners on the houses on the hill.

Cade’s swift recon produced nothing. Not a glint of sky off
of glass—the telltale sign of optics being trained on the multi-vehicle
spectacle clogging the road in plain sight. With his Spidey sense now tingling
worse than ever, he set the brake, climbed down from the truck, and hustled
back to the Land Cruiser in a combat crouch. Catching Duncan’s eye, he said,
“We’re being watched.”

Duncan answered immediately. “I feel it too.”

“Time to go,” Cade said.

On the way back to his ride, Cade stopped at each plow truck
and—to a pair of confused looks—told Taryn and Lev to raise and retract the
blades on their trucks.

Shaking his head, he loped around front of Taryn’s truck and
hopped in his. He clicked his seatbelt and worked the plow controls before him
and, eavesdroppers be damned, with the hiss of hard-working hydraulics
filtering into the cab, took up the radio and talked the others through the
process.

In the third plow truck, Lev was listening intently and
without a hitch managed to get the plow apparatus to fold up and out of the
way.

Taryn, on the other hand, demanded to know why they couldn’t
just stop at the bottom and take the time now to dismantle the roadblock
entirely.

“Just trust me,” Cade said, as he put the blade on his own
truck back into the lowered position.

After a short pause, Taryn was back on the radio. “You
haven’t failed us yet,” she said. “Lead the way.”

Realizing how big and tempting a target they were for
whoever was watching them, Cade released the brake and goosed the throttle to
get the truck rolling forward. Then, on the start of the downslope, as the
truck picked up speed, he eased up off the gas and let it coast. Steering
one-handed, he snatched up the radio and thumbed the
Talk
button. “Keep
a generous following distance,” was all he had to offer. He couldn’t say:
These
trucks might be too wide for the gap
. That would be wholly
counterproductive.

Duncan came back on the radio. As if he’d been reading
Cade’s mind, with a touch of skepticism evident in his voice, he asked, “You
sure these things are gonna fit?”

Trying to sound confident, Cade answered, “Brooke drove the
F-650 through there on the way to the compound. I figure these can’t be that
much wider.”

“If they prove to be,” said Duncan, “y’all will soon find
out … the hard way.” For a brief second before he released the
Talk
key,
the beginnings of one of his trademark cackles filtered over the air for all to
hear.

Shaking his head, Cade set the radio in the console. He
gripped the steering wheel tightly, squinted against the glare, and fixed his
gaze on the National Guard roadblock dead ahead. It had been set up on the west
end of a viaduct crossing, and Cade figured that the ink on the President’s
declaration of Martial Law wasn’t even dry before the soldiers who died here
had come under attack. Just a few short weeks ago, while traveling overland
from Mack, Colorado to the Eden Compound, he, Brooke, Raven, and the Kids had
happened upon this scene of carnage. Using the F-650’s winch, and with Wilson’s
help and Brook driving, they had managed to clear a lane, but not before
discovering the bodies of the dozen soldiers who had died there protecting it.
At the time, without stating his intentions, Cade struck out on his own and
with only a couple of cans of gas and a Bic lighter gave the fallen heroes a
modified Viking’s funeral.

Thankfully, due to the cement Jersey barriers and coverage
of drifted snow, things were different this time around and he wouldn’t have to
look at the burnt and bullet-riddled bodies again. Nosed into the Jersey
barriers in the eastbound lane was a long line of cars whose owners had failed
to escape the horrors of Huntsville. Since morning, an inches-thick layer of snow
had accumulated on their trunks, roofs, hoods and, to a certain extent, their
side windows—obscuring the handful of Zs still locked inside.

The right lane, however, was a different story altogether.
The cement barriers that had been blocking the westbound lane and shoulder were
now resting in the ditch along with several cars, the latter of which were
snow-covered and canted at odd angles, some listing to the point where their
driver’s sides were planted in the dirt, leaving the grime- and grease-streaked
mechanical components exposed to daylight.

Just before the hill flattened out, and with only a couple
of hundred yards or so to go before entering the narrow breach between the
barriers and bridge rail, Cade flicked his eyes to the side mirror. He liked
what he saw. He had a three-truck’s-length lead and the other two plow trucks
were a like distance apart. The 4Runner was partway down the hill and the Land
Cruiser was just now moving off the flat spot atop the rise.

Here goes nothing
, he thought, toggling his blade up
and out of the way while simultaneously increasing the volume of rock falling
through the spreader out back.

All at once, the blade up front juddered violently and there
was a hollow twang, followed a tick later by the shrill keening of metal
molecules being instantly reshaped.

***

In the 4Runner, Wilson was gripping the grab bar near his
head with one hand and had the other, fingers splayed, planted on the dash
right next to where the words
SR5 AIR BAG
were embossed in quarter-inch
script into the pebbled gray vinyl. Praying that Jamie was half the driver
Taryn was, he saw the horizon tilt in his side vision. As the two trucks in
front tackled the decline, everything seemed to slow for him. He saw clearly
the load shift in back of Cade’s truck as it entered the level stretch of road
running up to the roadblock. Then he noticed the massive plow blade lifting off
the ground and simultaneously merging with the apparatus up front.

“Cade’s big ass F-650 barely shot that gap before,” Wilson
said. “I don’t think this one stands a chance.”

Like a square peg fed into a round hole, Cade’s plow truck,
bouncing and slewing slightly to the left on the slick surface, entered the gap
traveling at what looked to be north of forty miles-per-hour. Feeling slightly
prophetic, Wilson witnessed the shower of sparks erupt from down low on the
truck’s left side the second the orange sheet metal came into contact with the thirty-five-hundred-pound
Jersey barrier. Consequently, the equal and opposite reaction came in the form
of the Mack truck caroming towards the right shoulder, where the truck impacted
an incredibly small two-door car. Originally resting with its stunted front end
jutting from the roadside ditch, the collision with the plow truck blasted
every flake of snow off the compact car and sent it tumbling nose over tail.
Wilson saw the running gear underneath show itself first; then, as the car
neared one full revolution, clear as day, he saw the red and blue
interconnecting bars of the Union Jack flag painted on its roof. Then the sound
of the car—clearly a Mini Cooper—landing wheels down atop the sedan behind it
was lost on Wilson; however, the resulting eruption of pebbled glass and
powdery snow was not.

As the Mini settled into its final resting place, the UDOT
truck veered back to the left at a shallow angle toward the static line of
vehicles.

***

Taryn winced at the first sign of sparks, but there was
nothing she could do. Already committed, she held the wheel straight and felt
the air suspension swallow up the dip at the base of the hill. She looked at
the speedometer and saw the needle creeping toward forty miles-per-hour. When
she looked up again there was a flash of color and movement and an eruption of
sparkling debris as a compact import went airborne then landed smack dab atop a
much larger passenger car, causing every one of its windows to implode. The
finale to the unexpected chain of events happened as she watched the truck
driven by Cade veer back to the left and sideswipe the dozen or so static cars
there. Consequently, like old-timey flash bulbs going off one after another,
splintered plastic and shards of mirrored glass bloomed from every wing mirror
down the line until the UDOT truck was rolling free.

“That should do it,” Cade said glibly over the radio.

Taryn tensed as the blade on her truck came parallel with
the Jersey barrier. To her relief, there were no sparks or sounds of rending
metal as she saw it flit cleanly by on the left. The side mirrors on the row of
cars that weren’t sheared clean were now swinging wildly from their control
wires. On her right, she saw the cars in the ditch flash by in a blur of white
and red and black and maroon. She didn’t allow herself to relax until her truck
was clear of the roadblock and she saw the brake lights of Cade’s truck flare
red.

***

Immediately following the chain-reaction collisions with the
line of cars, Cade watched a dozen prostrate Zs disappear under the vibrating
blade. Next, the truck bucked slightly, and then a prolonged chorus of breaking
bones assailed his ears until the rig literally
ground
to a halt atop
the mangled bodies. He consulted the side mirror and saw that all of the
vehicles were off the hill and three of the four had made it through the block.
The Land Cruiser was just entering the widened opening and he caught a brief
glimpse of the dead soldiers, the snow blown off of them by the passing
slipstreams, their charred prostrate forms standing out in stark contrast
against the white backdrop.

He sensed the truck driven by Taryn as it pulled even.
Ignoring the movement in his peripheral, he manipulated the controls to get the
blade moving. There was a hiss of hydraulics, but nothing else. He toggled the
switch rapidly back and forth.

Nothing.

Then there was a loud banging followed by a high-pitched
whine, and at the end of the sloped hood he saw the blade moving into position.
When he looked left, he saw Taryn standing there, beaming at him, an
eight-pound sledgehammer clutched in her gloved hands.

She walked around the driver’s side and was looking up him
just as the blade locked into position. He opened his window and thanked her.

“It was on the floor board when I got in the truck. Figured
I’d put it to use,” she said. “And hell, Cade. You said you’d get us through
the block. And you sure did. Pretty impressive.”

“Physics,” he said, as the other vehicles formed up in a
line stretching back. “Honestly ... I thought this thing would squeak through
without making contact.”

She smiled. “Nobody’s perfect, Mister Grayson. Are you going
to see if the blade is going to stay put before we get going?”

“No need,” he said. “It’s down now ... thanks to you. It’s
going to stay there until it won’t. And it’s Cade ... or Grayson. No Mister.
And I’ve never answered to sir, never will.”

She nodded and looked to her left at the static herd of
dead, some standing, most not. “Are we going to take care of these now or
later?”

He looked at his Suunto. Saw that it was nearing four
o’clock and realized time was slipping away fast. He shook his head. “We’ve got
a lot to do still. Mount up or we’ll be driving home in the dark.”

Just as Taryn nodded and turned toward her truck, Cade’s
radio blurted to life. He regarded the side mirror and saw the Land Cruiser
coming to a halt at the back of the procession. In the next beat Duncan said,
“We better stop and bury those soldiers back there.”