Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed (23 page)

Underneath the three-hundred dollar jacket that he could not
have fathomed paying half as much for had he the money to burn, Gregory Dregan
was sweating like a whore in church—as his highly religious, albeit none too
politically correct mother had been fond of saying. The spot on the overgrown
fire road he had chosen to take a break from walking was sheltered from the still-falling
snow and in sight of yet another victim of the virus let loose on humanity by
some dumbass in a supposedly secure facility somewhere on earth. That much he
was certain of. The lies to the contrary had piled up early on, with leaders of
every country on earth pointing fingers and, in some cases, nuclear-tipped
missiles at each other. Rumors ran rampant that last week in July. And the
first inkling that Gregory had that the President of the United States wasn’t
being totally honest with the people he served was when POTUS had urged
everyone, except those in essential services, to stay home and ride it out even
while news outlets were reporting that government bigwigs were fleeing D.C.
like rats from a sinking ship. This was confirmed when a Russian language
internet site Gregory liked to get the other side of the story from showed a
still photo of Air Force One lifting off from Andrews and, in the background,
clear as day on his computer monitor, he saw inert cars clogging the surface
streets and highways and a background haze dotted with points of orange light
that told him D.C. was burning. So much for
essential services
, he had
thought at the time.

The part that really confused him, however,—to the point of
making him think the photo might have been manipulated in Photoshop—was that
after watching footage on television and online and then consequently seeing,
in person and up close, armored personnel carriers on the streets of Salt Lake
City—was the President’s live message from the White House situation room in
which he doubled down on his initial call for citizens to, in his words,
‘shelter in place and ride the effects of this nasty virus out.’

The infected forty-something woman kneeling on the snow a
yard from him was all the proof he needed that the President’s words had been
meaningless bullshit. Shelter in place or run for the hills, it didn’t matter
what you did—this immobilized monster was proof that Omega would find you
regardless. And that aspect of how the virus was delivered was most insidious
of all, for if this victim on the fire road was a decade older she might as
well have been his mom. People’s reluctance to confront the fact that a loved
one could suddenly turn and immediately hunger for the nearest meat certainly
hastened Omega’s spread.

In the end—even with all that he had learned about the
government’s failed attempt at containment and seeing first-hand that there was
no surviving a bite—he couldn’t bring himself to put his own mom down. In the
heat of the moment, nothing anyone said could convince him that who and what
she had meant to him—which was the world—was no longer inside that ambulatory
shell.

She’s dead
, Peter had screamed to him as the pistol
wavered in his numb hand on that hot July day.

They were pulled off at a rest stop near Arsenal, Utah,
where Dad had made the executive decision to bypass the burgeoning FEMA
facility near there and ‘head for the hills’ as he put it then. The self-proclaimed
Gas Baron’s old overloaded Buick, threatening to overheat, was parked in the
furthermost spot from the looted vending machines standing sentinel before the
cinderblock bathrooms. Mom had been raving about how her head hurt one moment
then was dead the next.
Flatline
, as the doctors on television called
it. No pulse. No respiration. And all because they had listened to the President
and sheltered in place in their two-story colonial at the end of a once quiet
cul-de-sac while the world died outside their multi-paned windows. One tiny
bite from a wandering neighbor kid did her in. She was a
slow burn,
as
some of the scientists started calling the ones who didn’t turn right away. Mom
had taken sixteen hours to succumb, whereas the kid who bit her was dead in
less than twenty minutes.

Just like the assholes who watch their dog leave a steaming
dump in the middle of a park, then look over both shoulders before walking away
without doing their civic duty—the grandmother warding over the recently turned
kid wanted nothing further to do with him and released him onto the street like
a feral dog. Then Silvie, always the kindhearted one, tried to round the
infected boy up to do what was right. The ‘compassionate thing’ were her exact
words. And that vein of compassion that ran so deep in her was what did her in.

At the rest stop, with Dad’s revolver in hand and a stern
‘just do it’ echoing in his head, Gregory Dregan saw no kind of compassion in
what he was being told to do … only murder. So he had walked away from the
Buick, leaving Silvie thrashing and snapping at him like an animal. No amount
of begging and pleading from him could convince his dad to do the same as the
elderly neighbor had done with the neighbor boy—simply let her go. Just drive
off and leave the rest up to fate.

The word ‘coward’ rang out at Gregory’s back, then, a
millisecond later, he flinched when his dad, Alexander Dregan, put a bullet
into his mother’s brain. The people at the rest stop didn’t flinch like he had.
Not a person. They just went about their business as if the woman
was
a
rabid dog being put down.

That was the day the new normal hit Gregory Dregan.

And that was the day any respect he had had for his dad was
at its lowest.

Now, weeks later, Dad still hadn’t apologized for calling
him a coward in front of his brother and all of those people at the rest stop.
Pot calling the fucking kettle black. Send a boy to do a man’s job and all that
jazz. Therefore respect for the elder Dregan was nowhere near to where it had
been before that day in Arsenal.

“Sorry, lady,” Gregory said to the undead thing as he drew
the long blade from his hip. Though this one, like all the others he’d
encountered since the snow started to fall, was unmoving and unresponsive, he
still approached the slight woman with caution and from the side. “I have to do
this to you. It’s my duty.” He grabbed a handful of the thing’s matted blonde
hair and was startled by how it crackled in his grasp. It was slippery against
his glove, so he pushed the thing onto its side and put his boot on its thin
neck. And like every female roamer he’d dispatched since denying his mom sweet
release, he said, “Bye Mom,” before thrusting his dagger into the soft spot
between ear and eye socket. Lips set in a thin white line, he pushed hard on
the handle until the hilt struck bone, then continued applying pressure until
the horrid sound of cracking skull made him ease up. He drew back the blade and,
like the seven roamers he’d already come across and dispatched since leaving
the snowmobile under the tree, no blood spilled from this kill. No maggots
squirmed from the jagged gash. But best of all, somewhere, he knew Silvie was
watching and proud of how far he’d come.

He dragged the corpse off to the side. Straightened the body
out face up and arranged the arms so they crossed over where he guessed the
heart to be.

After saying a prayer, which he did for every female
regardless of age, he shed a glove and again consulted the map. Ten minutes
studying the myriad roads and symbols only confused him further. The Ogden
River and fire lane had taken divergent paths a mile back. Since then the fire
lane had twisted and turned on him and made a big run in a direction he thought
was south before abruptly turning back on itself.

As he stood there, his dim shadow falling over the dead
woman, he realized several things were stacking up against him. One, the map
taken from a car left behind a ransacked and burned-out Shell station just
outside of Huntsville weeks ago predated the 9/11 attacks. Two, it had gotten
wet the last time he had it out and as a result had started to tear at the
creases, two of which intersected near where he thought he was. And three, with
no compass and snow-laden clouds blocking out the sun, orienting himself west
where he knew the missing orb would soon be setting was an exercise in futility.

Eden Compound

“Girls,” Brook called. “Get your coats and gloves on. We’re
going topside.”

“C’mon Mom,” replied Raven, a defiant tone to her voice.
“Can’t we watch just
one
more episode?”

“Shut it off,
now
,” shot Brook, a rare hint of anger
creeping into her tone. “The fuel in the generators isn’t there just so you two
can binge watch the entire Twilight series.”

After a bit of grumbling the girls assembled, dressed and
ready to go, albeit a little blurry-eyed.

“What do you have in mind, Mrs. Grayson?”

“Sasha ... like I said, call me Brook or Mom. Mrs. only
makes me feel old.”

“But you are, Mom.” Raven’s eyes went wide, as if she
couldn’t believe the words that just spilled from her mouth. In the next beat,
instead of atoning for the transgression, a chuckle escaped her lips and she
looked to Sasha for approval.

Knowing it was normal for a newly minted twelve-year old to
continue testing boundaries, Brook let it slide. She cast a glance at Sasha,
who was older than Raven by nearly three years. The girl was standing silent,
her eyes twinkling with a newfound intelligence. Either due to the recent
deaths or simply time’s effect on her maturity, the fourteen-year old had
become steadily more respectful. The smart alecky outbursts were few and far
between and she’d even softened her anti-gun stance. It was as if in some
strange Jekyll and Hyde sort of way the two girls were switching poles. And
Brook found it kind of refreshing. A little sass aimed in the proper direction
never hurt anybody. In fact, she reasoned, it might be just what Raven needed
to boost her confidence a little. She made a mental note to pick and choose her
battles very carefully in the near future and let Bird win the ones that—though
inconsequential in the big scheme of things—might be monumental in importance
to the still maturing tween.

With both girls looking on, Brook opened a drawer and pulled
out a pair of Beretta semi-auto pistols. They gleamed dully under the lone
overhead bulb as she placed them side-by-side on the tabletop. She set the pair
of loaded magazines next to the pistols and closed the drawer. She took one of the
nine-millimeters in hand, pointed the muzzle at the floor and struggled to grip
the slide fully with the forefinger and thumb of her right hand. Still lacking
in that hand the motor skills and strength necessary to perform this very
important task, she gripped the weighty pistol between her knees and easily
pulled the slide back with her left. Visually, she verified the chamber was
empty, let the slide snap shut, then holstered the pistol. She repeated the
process with the other Beretta and handed one to each girl. “We’re going to
shoot off-hand again, today. That means with the hand you
don’t
write
with. One magazine each.” She rose and grabbed her own Glock 19, which was in a
holster and hanging off the corner post of the bunk near to her head. She strapped
the drop-leg rig on and regarded Raven with a no-nonsense look. “Antiserum
check.”

Raven fished the metal canister from her jacket in front.
Held it for all to see and rattled the contents. “Satisfied?” she said, letting
go of the string securing it around her neck.

Brook went about tightening the thigh strap while out of the
corner of her eye she watched the girls cinching their weapon belts on. Then to
her surprise, like a scene unfolding before a mirror in a Gap fitting room, the
girls looked one another up and down and smiled like they were doing something
as innocuous as accessorizing new school clothes.

“Let’s go, Max,” she called. The dog appeared at her heel
out of the gloom. She looked at the girls with an arched brow. “We’re Oscar
Mike,
fashionistas
.” Walking with a slight limp and unaware of the funny
looks being sent her way by both girls, Brook led them down the hall and when
they reached the security desk, sent them ahead with Max. She craned towards
the foyer and, once confident the girls were out of earshot, asked Seth, “Have
they checked in?”

“Nope,” he replied, munching on a stale Cheeto, the orange
crumbs raining down on his black beard where too many to count already
languished in the lengthening tangle. “I don’t think we’ll hear anything until
they’re on their way back.”

Brook looked at her Timex. “Not a lot of daylight left.”

“Probably will take them longer to hump their gear through
the fallen trees than make the drive back from Huntsville.”

Brook nodded, then grimaced as a dagger of pain shot through
the taut skin around her healing wound.

Seth pushed the Cheetos bag away, rose and offered a
steadying hand. “You OK?” he asked, his face gone tight with worry.

“Same ‘ol, same ‘ol.” She gestured at the monitor and tensed
up. After a second she relaxed and muttered an expletive at herself for
forgetting so quickly that every sudden movement had its consequences. Steadying
herself on the counter, she drew a deep breath and asked, “Is the road still
clear?”

Seth wiped his hands on his pants, leaving orange tracks
there from his fingers. He sat down and, while absentmindedly worrying his
black beard with one hand, said cheerily, “Nothing. And I mean
nothing
is moving up there.”

“The microphone working now?”

Seth shook his head. “Foley couldn’t work his magic on it.”

“Couldn’t hear anything but wind in that piece of crap anyway,”
Brook said. “Is the shroud over the cameras doing what it’s supposed to?”

“Don’t know if it’s the shroud, the WD-40 Foley shot on the
dome, or a combination of the two. But whatever the case, the snow is avoiding
it like the plague.” Seth winced and then flashed a wan smile at Brook.
“Sorry,” he added. “Very bad choice of words.”