Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed (44 page)

After savoring the attention and returning it tenfold for a
couple of minutes, Brook sat up and looked around. “I heard engines. Glenda. Is
Glenda out there yet?”

The crowd parted and the older woman stepped up and shot
Brook a bewildered look.

No reason to beat around the bush. Brook said, “Oliver is
alive. He and the others should be back any time now.”

Hearing this, Glenda fell to her knees. “How?”

Brook checked her patient’s pulse. Smiling and looking at
Glenda, she said, “That’s all I know. And Mister Dregan … this one’s not out of
the woods yet but, based on firsthand knowledge, I think he’s going to pull
through.”

She dug the Thuraya from her pocket. After dredging the code
word for
safe
from her memory, she tapped out a short message and sent it
to Cade’s sat-phone. It read simply: Stand down. We are
peachy.

The first part of the promised
life debt
arrived an
hour after the convoy of mostly military vehicles turned around and headed back
to Bear River with Gregory Dregan’s feet still firmly planted in the realm of
the living.

Now, hours later, Brook gazed to her left at the tanker
truck partially blocking Daymon’s Winnebago from view. Emblazoned on its polished
stainless flank, barely discernable because of the licking flames of the
roaring campfire being reflected there, were the words BEAR VALLEY PROPANE. And
not to be missed beneath those two-foot-high red letters was rattle-canned
writing in black that read: Alexander Dregan – Gas Baron of Salt Lake City.

“That will easily outlast winter,” she said to Cade, who was
sitting on the grass in front of her with his left ankle entombed in snow that
once made up the main body of Raven and Sasha’s snowman.

“You did good,” Cade said, following her gaze to the
tractor-trailer and shiny tank hitched to it.

“I learned from the best,” she answered, fumbling left-handed
to shovel some rice and beans into her mouth off an enameled metal camp plate.

Casting long shadows across the clearing, Daymon and Heidi
rose from camp chairs and headed off toward the Winnebago, heads down and
chuckling at something. A tick later, under Glenda’s disapproving glare, Oliver
set his metal plate down atop the ones left behind by the departing couple and
followed after them.

“Gotta admit,” said Cade, “The marijuana Oliver found sure
has smoothed the rough edges off our resident logger extraordinaire.”

Brook said nothing to that. She was still watching Glenda
watch the trio leave. Then she snickered at seeing Duncan, who was obviously taking
advantage of Oliver’s absence, boost the woman up and lead her off toward the
compound. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Everyone seems to be getting along real
well.”

Making a racket, Cade scraped the beans into a neat little
pile on his plate with his fork. Not caring if anyone was watching, he leaned
forward and, with a wet slurping sound, hoovered them up.

Making Cade start and dump his fork in his lap, Brook called
across the fire at Raven and Sasha. “Girls,” she said, “welcome to Day One of
punishment for going AWOL. Police up everyone’s plates and silverware and get
to washing.”

Raven blew on her marshmallow until the bluish flame died
out. “How many days does punishment last?” she asked just prior to jamming the
blackened morsel into her mouth.

“Ninety days,” Cade said in a no nonsense tone. “Breakfast,
lunch”—

—“and dinner,” Brook said, finishing for him.

Cade watched the girls begin their sentence. He tracked them
around the fire as they relieved Tran, Foley, and Seth of their plates and
utensils. “And they better be clean,” he added, maintaining a straight face.

“And we’ve been appointed official quality control
officers,” Wilson said, nudging Taryn— who was snuggling underneath a blanket
on the same camp chair with him—to go along with his ruse.

“Yeah … that’s the ticket,” Taryn said, not very
convincingly, as Raven took a pair of dirty plates from her outstretched hand.

Happy to see a sense of community returning to the tiny
group, Cade caught the attention of his daughter and her co-conspirator. “It
takes a village,” he said jokingly. “So from here on out, we are all watching
you two like hawks.” Then suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, his smile
evaporated and his face took on a hard set. He plucked the Thuraya from his
pocket and thumbed it on. As soon as the sat phone’s screen lit up, turning his
face a cool shade of blue, he scrolled to the messages and selected the most
recent. Seeing Nash’s number and time stamp attached to the recording, he
pressed the
Talk
button and listened intently.

Sensing her man’s every muscle tense, Brook leaned forward
and whispered into his ear, “What is it?”

Cade thumbed the phone off. “Raven,” he called out. “Go
inside and get my laptop.” He craned around and caught Lev’s eye. “I need you
to get me the satellite dish from the Black Hawk.”

Brook watched both Raven and Lev spring to action. “That
urgent?” she asked.

Cade leaned back and looked into her brown eyes. “Words
cannot begin to describe what Nash just divulged to me.”

“Humor me,” she said, meeting his upside-down gaze.

Cade shook his head. “You’re just going to have to watch the
screen over my shoulder and see it for yourself.”

###

Thanks for reading
Frayed
!
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Delta team on a new mission in the forthcoming novel in my bestselling
Surviving
the Zombie Apocalypse
series. Look for it in 2016. Please feel free to
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