The Dead Series (Book 4): Dead End (24 page)

“You want to split from Steve?” Connie asked with shock.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “It’s the risk I’m thinking about. We’re safe here, but if you and I go to Polk, we might end up getting drafted into the Army. Being with Cindy won’t mean anything after we get her there. You heard what those people we were sitting with at dinner were saying. Everyone from eight to eighty, blind, crippled or crazy was going into the military, whether they wanted to or not. Besides, I know that once I tell Rick about my background, he’ll be glad to have us here.”

“But you have to serve in the militia if you stay here,” Connie reminded him.

Brain snorted and said, “Only one week out of four. That will be a cakewalk compared to what we’ve already been through. Besides, with my tech degree, I’ll probably never be sent to the field.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Connie said, “but my mother always told me not to count my chickens before they hatch.”

Leaning back to look at her, Brain asked, “Did she really say that?”

Connie laughed lightly and said, “Maybe not exactly, but something like that.”

“Well, you can count this chicken, because he’s come home to roost,” Brain told her as he pulled her close.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Fort Redoubt:

Steve woke to a persistent sound of something knocking on wood. At first, his groggy mind thought it was a woodpecker and he reached out for a shoe to throw at it. Feeling something in front of him, he opened his eyes, but all he could see was his hand pressed against a rough framed wall inches from his face. For a few seconds, he wasn’t sure where he was, but then it all came flooding back to him.

Rolling over, he saw that Heather had gotten up to answer the door and was having a conversation with Rick. They were keeping their voices down, so he said, “I’m awake.”

Rick looked at him and said, “Good deal. Time to get up. I was going to have my aide wake you, but I wanted to talk to you two in private for a few minutes. Get dressed, and I’ll meet you out front.”

When Rick was gone, Steve threw back the blanket covering him and sat up. Looking at where he had thrown his clothes in a pile the night before, he knew that there was no way he was going to wear them again today. He’d had them on since the morning they left Happy Hallow, and he could smell them from here.

“I wonder if they have a
Laundromat?” he asked aloud.

Heather laughed and said, “They just might. I was shocked that they had hot water.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied while he rubbed his hands over his face to wake up, “Gerald told me that they put a bunch of solar heating tubes on the roof. You know, the ones they use to heat pools. He said that as soon as things settle down a little more, they’re going to start taking solar panels from houses and wiring them up to provide electricity. A few of the houses already have them, but he said that Rick wants all of them set up by the beginning of next winter.”

“I guess that will be the only way to get electricity for a long time,” Heather commented.

Pulling on his pants, Steve asked, “Did Rick give you any idea what he wanted?”

Heather shook her head and replied, “He just said he wanted to talk to us. It didn’t seem like it was bad news or anything from the way he was acting.”

“Well, I could use some good news,” Steve told her.

Walking out of the officer’s quarters, they found that a heavy fog had rolled in overnight, making it almost impossible to see as far as the walls of the fort. Rick was talking to one of his officers, but he broke off the conversation as soon as he spotted them and motioned for them to follow him. When Steve and Heather had fallen in on either side of him, he said, “I’ve actually got a couple things to talk to you about. The first is that I want you to know that your friend Tick-Tock made his own decision to join us. I had nothing to do with it. I was almost floored when he came up and asked if he and Denise could stay. I know that he’s your right hand man, so I didn’t want you to think that I talked him into it. I don’t want any bad blood between us.”

Steve’s face hardened at the thought of splitting up with his friend, but it had nothing to do with Rick Styles. He had rolled the situation over in his mind again and again the night before, and while at first he had wanted to blame him, it was obvious he had nothing to do with it. Steve knew that Tick-Tock wouldn’t be swayed by any offers from the commander. The only reason he was staying was that Denise couldn’t move.

Next, he had blamed Denise, and anger welled up in him at the very idea of her keeping Tick-Tock here while the rest of them moved on. This quickly subsided, though, when he thought it through. It wasn’t her fault, and in fact she had been hurt while blowing up the front doors of the mansion so they could escape.

His thoughts then turned to the dead, the main reason they were all in this situation to begin with. If he was going to play the blame game, this is where the responsibility rested. They were mindless hunks of walking dead flesh, and they were the reason why he and his group had been displaced, on the run, and were now about to split up. He knew that he couldn’t kill them all, but he resolved there and then that no matter what, he would get Cindy to a doctor so they could find a cure. Or better yet, a way to eradicate them.

No, Rick Styles wasn’t to blame.

Steve stopped, held out his hand and said, “There’s no hard feelings. I know why Tick-Tock is staying. You’re lucky to have him.”

Rick shook the offered hand and said, “I know I’m lucky. Out of my original militia, only about half are left. I need good officers. I have a couple people left that served in the military, but none of them have been through all that you all have.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at this, so Rick explained, “Tick-Tock gave me a rundown of what you’ve been through since the dead started coming back to life. The radio station, the cruise ship, and everything since you all made landfall in Galveston. If I knew I wasn’t wasting my breath, I’d try to talk you into staying, too.”

Steve gave a hard smile and said, “Never happen. I’ve got more important things to take care of.”

“I know,” Rick said. “And that brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk to you about. As soon as the generators come online and the radio room gets fired up, you’re going to be calling Fort Polk. They may have orders to ignore civilian radio traffic, but I think they’ll listen to what you have to say. Up until about a few weeks ago when they quit talking to everybody except each other, they were asking for anyone that was immune to the disease to contact them.”

Steve felt excitement at hearing this. He’d had some doubts that the government would still be interested in Cindy, but those were squashed.

“Once you contact them, the Army will probably be here sometime today or tomorrow,” Rick said, “and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Steve smiled and said, “Don’t worry about the people you took in that are deserters, I won’t say anything.”

“I appreciate that,” Rick said, “but that’s only part of it.” In a quiet voice, he added, “I lost my wife and two boys to the dead. They were in California visiting their grandma when everything went to hell. They tried to get a flight out, but everything was booked up. They tried renting a car, but it was the same thing, so they went back to stay with her mom. Vanessa knew what to do, get water and food and fortify the house, but everything happened so fast that she didn’t have time. I was on the phone with her when they broke in.”

Rick fell silent, so Steve gave him a moment to compose himself.

When he was steady enough to talk, he said, “I also have a daughter. She didn’t go to California because she was sick.” Waving his hand to take in the fort and the armed guards patrolling its walls, he added, “We take out all of the good sized herds of dead-asses that come our way, but sooner or later we’re going to get hit by a group that’s so big that it will roll right over us. We’ve got a good thing going here, but it won’t last forever, so I want you to take Stacey with you when you go. I know that it’s about as safe here as it is anywhere in the world right now, but I also know that it would be a lot safer for her at Fort Polk. They quit taking in refugees, but if she’s with you, they’ll let her in. She won’t be any trouble, and she can pull her own weight. I taught her everything she knows.”

Steve knew that he couldn’t say no. Rick had saved them from the herd of Zs that were about to overrun them, and then took his group in and fed and protected them. And after all, what was one more in the group when all they had to do was take a short chopper flight?

Smiling, Steve said, “No problem.”

Heather chimed in, “Of course we’ll take her with us.”

Surprised that it was that easy, Rick looked shocked. He had been trying to get his last remaining child somewhere safe since all of this began, and in the end it was this simple.

After shaking hands with Steve and giving Heather a hug, Rick started to lead them to the chow hall. They only made it a few feet, though, when they were stopped by one of his officers.

“Commander,” a pretty, dark-haired woman called out as she ran to catch up to them. “I hate to interrupt you, but Z-girl Lisa was spotted outside the fort. You said that you wanted to be informed as soon as she showed up again.”

“Shit,” Rick said under his breath.

“What’s a Z-girl Lisa?” Heather asked.

“One of the dead,” Rick explained. “A couple of the officers named her. She’s been around since we first set up the camp. I don’t know how she’s managed to do it, but somehow or another she’s avoided getting a bullet in the head. A lot of people say that she’s smarter than the other dead.”

“Smarter?” Heather asked.

“I’d say it’s
a coincidence,” Rick told them. “But she only comes out when there’s fog, and it’s hard to see her because of what she’s wearing.”

“What’s that?” Heather asked.

“She’s dressed in a bridal gown,” Rick answered. “It’s perfect camouflage. Most of the dead we see have lost or worn their clothes off, but somehow or another she’s managed to keep hers intact. I’ve never seen her, but from what I’ve heard, she even still has her veil on. It’s my guess she’s found somewhere to hole up. I remember hearing back when this all this started that a lot of the dead hid in sewers and drainage pipes. We don’t have anything like that around here, so we have no idea where she’s at. The trees are too thick to search everywhere inside the perimeter, so when we first set up, we just killed the dead when they came at us. As far as we know, we got them all except for Z-girl. That’s another reason why a lot of people say that she’s smarter than the average dead ass, she never attacks anyone that’s armed. It’s like she knows she’ll get her shit scattered, so she only comes out to grab a chicken or a pig when there’s no one around. We’ve tried tracking her half a dozen times but could never find her. I was planning on settling her account before now, but something more important always keeps coming up.”

“And she lives right outside the fort between the wall and the first line of wire?” Steve asked as he eyed the open gate.

“Yeah,” Rick replied miserably, “I keep hoping that she’ll wander too far and step on a landmine. My biggest fear is that she’s going to come across someone that’s not paying attention. Then it won’t be just a random chicken she’s eating.” Turning to the officer, he said, “Jennifer, I want you to take five of your people and track this dead bitch down. I want her taken out once and for all.”

The woman snapped to attention and barked out, “Yes, sir.”

After she was gone, Rick said, “I hope they get her this time. Most of my people can pull off an ambush with no problem, but that’s about it. That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to having Tick-Tock here. I need someone to train them.”

Looking at Heather, Steve raised one eyebrow. She smiled back, and that was all the answer he needed. Turning to Rick, he said, “Commander Styles, in appreciation for all you’ve done for us, we are temporarily volunteering our services until the present crisis is over.”

Confused, Rick asked, “What crisis?”

Heather said, “We’re going to get Z-girl Lisa for you.”

***

When the four people from Rick Styles’ group joined Steve and Heather in the chow hall to go over their plan, Jennifer, the dark-haired female officer, marched up to them and saluted before barking out, “Jennifer Bosquez-Morales reporting for duty, sir. Commander Styles told me to listen to everything you had to teach us. That way, I can pass it on to others. I will not fail in my duty, sir.”

Trying to get her to relax, Steve saluted back and asked, “Where are you from?”

“San Antonio,” she replied rigidly.

“So I take it from your last name that you’re married,” Steve said.

At this, she smiled and pointed to a large, muscular man sitting at a table a short distance away and said, “That’s my husband. His name is Javier.”

Noticing that she was wearing camouflage while her husband was dressed in work clothes, he asked teasingly, “And he doesn’t have any problem taking orders from his superior officer?”

She laughed and said, “He’s an officer, too. We both served in the ROTC in college. We are on different rotations, so one of us is always home with our son. His name is Joaquin. Javier works here in the camp as a blacksmith when he’s not serving in the Guard.”

Seeing that she had relaxed, Steve said, “All right, Jennifer Bosquez-Morales, we’re going to keep it as simple as possible. First thing to remember is that the more complex the plan, the more chance there is for a screw up. Did you bring the map?”

She unrolled a hand sketched map of the fort and its defenses on the table, weighing its corners down with salt and pepper shakers before pointing to a spot and saying, “This is where Z-girl was spotted this morning.”

“Is this where she’s usually seen?” Heather asked.

Jennifer thought about it for a few seconds before answering, “Most of the time. It’s at the back left hand corner of the fort, where we keep the chicken coops.” Pointing to another spot at the far corner, she said, “This is where we keep the pigsties. She also shows up there from time to time. We only keep one person on guard for the pens and the coops now because most of the predators in the area are gone.”

“Gone?” Steve asked.

“The dead have either eaten them or ran them off,” Jennifer explained. “The only predators left are the dead. Even a bear is no match for something that feels no pain and can’t be stopped, so it flees. And if there’s a group of them going after it…” She let her voice trail off.

Turning to Heather, Steve asked, “So what will it be, chicken or pork?”

After studying the map, Heather asked Jennifer, “What’s the area like behind the fort?”

“We cut the trees back thirty feet, so it’s wide open,” she answered. “Beyond that is a lot of scrub brush, and then the forest. The woods are pretty thick directly behind the wall and to the right, but then they thin out as you go to the left.”

Heather looked at the map and said, “More than likely, Z-girl is in the woods beyond the chicken coops to the left. When she gets hungry, she tries for some KFC takeout, but if she sees someone, she cuts along the edge of the woods and heads for the pigsty.”

“So that’s where we’ll check first,” Steve told them.

***

Wisps of fog drifted across the grass and partially obscured the scrub brush when the hunters reached the back of the fort. Of the trees, nothing could be seen. The mist dampened sound and occasionally grew so thick that it obscured the rest of the group, leaving them feeling like they had been abandoned. When they spoke to one another, the sound was muffled despite them being only feet apart.

As he walked along the rear wall of the fort, Steve marveled at its construction. Despite the imposing spikes and sturdy construction, he knew that Rick was right about one thing. If the dead did come at them ten or twenty thousand strong, even the fortified walls would eventually give.

Smelling the pigsty before he reached it, Steve called for Jennifer to join him at the front of the group. She had been hanging back with her own people, but now it was time for her training to begin.

When she reached him, he said, “You and I are on point. Heather is going to be right behind us in a position called drag. She’s there to cover us and set the pace. Get one of your people that can walk backwards without tripping over their own feet and put them at the rear. This position is called trail. That leaves three people. They’re to cover our flanks in a staggered position.”

When they were sorted out and moving again, Steve called for everyone to stay close because of the fog. To Jennifer, he explained that if they were going after a living target, she should spread her people out with about five yards between them so they couldn’t be taken out with a single burst of automatic rifle fire. Ten feet if there was the possibility of mortar or artillery fire.

“But who would use that kind of weaponry against us?” she asked.

“There’s still bands of brigands out there,” Steve explained, “and they might want to take what you have. Rick told me that you have some heavy firepower to protect the fort, so what makes you think that someone else might not get their hands on some and use it to blow your walls down and take it?”

Giving the sty a wide berth because of the smell, they circled around the back of the fort and then moved in close to the wall. When they had only gone a few yards, they heard a voice call out, “Who’s there? Who is that? Is that you screwing around with me again, Gene? You think it’s funny, but one of these days you’re going to get shot playing games like this.”

Jennifer said in a voice only loud enough to be heard by the sentry, “It’s Lieutenant Bosquez-Morales. We’re here to try and get Z-girl.”

“Well, come on then,” the disembodied voice called back.

As they moved forward, Steve said, “I want you to set up a daily challenge and reply for the people on guard. One word only for each.”

Jennifer grinned sheepishly and said, “We used to do that, but we’ve kind of slacked off. We haven’t had any trouble from any looters in a long time. They see the outer fence
, and they know that we mean business.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t have trouble in the future,” Steve told her.

“I’ll make it a priority,” she assured him.

The sentry’s shape slowly emerged from the mist as they neared. First as a shapeless blob, then as a blurred human form, and then as a middle aged man standing with a hunting rifle in his hands.

He nodded to them and said, “About time someone took out the Z-girl. She’s been a pain in the ass since day one.”

“Where did you spot her?” Jennifer asked.

Turning, he motioned with his rifle as he said, “I was checking on the chickens when I saw her. At first I thought it was this damned fog coming off the lake, but then I got a real good look.” Turning back to them, he visibly shivered and said, “It was spooky. She was wearing that dress, and it was billowing out as she moved. I only saw her for a split second, so I didn’t get a chance to shoot.”

“Which direction was she heading?” Heather asked.

Pointing over his shoulder with his rifle, the sentry said, “Back yonder. I tried to get her to come at me by yelling and making noise so I could get a shot at her, but it didn’t work. She’s a smart one.”

The rest of the group had closed in to try and hear what was going on, so Steve told them to go back to their positions and face outward. To Jennifer, he said, “You always have to be on your guard. With everyone standing here all bunched up, Z-girl could have come up and bit one of us on the ass before we knew what was happening.”

She nodded solemnly and said, “I’ll remember that.”

Pointing in the direction of the chicken coops, Steve told her, “Move them out. You’re on point, and I’m on drag.”

Surprised that she was being given sole lead of her command so quickly, she smiled as she called, “Move out.” After a second, she added, “And keep your interval, or you’ll be scrubbing pots and pans for the rest of your rotation.”

When they reached the chicken coops, they checked to see if there had been any damage to them, showing that Z-girl Lisa had been successful in her raid. Finding none, Steve turned his attention to where the woods were shrouded in mist.

“You said that the trees thin out to the left?” he asked Jennifer.

Studying the area, she replied, “It’s a little difficult to tell without any landmarks, but if you go out at a forty-five degree angle from the corner of the fort, you run into the path that leads down to the lake. On the right of it they’re thick, and on the left of it they start to thin out more and more as you near the lake.”

Knowing it would be dangerous to move through the woods in the fog, Steve also knew that they had no choice. If Z-girl only showed when it was foggy, then this was the only chance they had to get her. They would just have to stay extra alert.

Turning to Jennifer, he said in a quiet voice, “Have your people close in until they’re almost touching. We don’t want anyone getting separated. I want complete noise discipline from here on out. We move as one, with everyone facing outward. No one fires a shot unless they’re completely sure they have a target.”

Jennifer relayed the orders, then made sure everyone was in position.

When she was done, Steve said, “All right, Jennifer Bosquez-Morales, move them out.”

It took her longer than she thought it would to find the mouth of the trail, but she knew she couldn’t miss it since it lay in the corner where the woods met. When they finally reached it, she was at a loss at what to do next. Stopping the group, she thought for a moment on what to do. She didn’t want to ask Steve and Heather because she was the one in command, but if she didn’t come up with something quick, she would have to.

Then it dawned on her that Steve was only using common sense in their effort to find Z-girl. He had narrowed down the search area by figuring out what her habits were, and that brought them here. Now she had to narrow it down more.

A plan came to her in a flash, so she said just loud enough to be heard, “Z-girl has got to be holed up somewhere nearby. She can’t be breaking through the woods every time she comes to the fort, or the sentries would have heard her. We’re going to be looking for a small trail or even a hole somewhere in the woods and brush that she uses to get onto the trail. My bet is it’s going to be to our right, since the trees thin out pretty quick on the left. There’s more places to hide on the right. I want every other person facing outward. Keep your eyes open and stop us if you see something. We’ll go all the way to the lake, and if we don’t find anything, we’ll come back and search the edge of the woods behind the fort.”

Looking to Steve and Heather to see if they approved, she got a smile and a nod from Steve and a, “Damn good plan, girl,” from Heather.

As they moved off, Jennifer noticed that the fog had started to thin a little on the trail but was still thick in the woods. This made it easier to see what was ahead, but not what might lunge out at them from the side. The trees and brush grew right up to the edge of the path, giving them only a split second to react if something did. Moving her eyes back and forth between both sides of the trail while also keeping an eye on what was to the front of them, she knew it was more likely that one of the people looking directly into the woods would find the path Z-girl was using. It would probably be a small game trail that was mostly overgrown since it was only used once in a while.

Spotting a small creek that cut across their path before emptying into the lake, she almost missed its significance when she was distracted by a whispered call from behind her to stop. Turning, she saw that one of her people was pointing his rifle into the woods with one hand while pointing with the other. Easing back to stand next to him, she looked to see what he had spotted.

“What is it?” she asked. “I don’t see anything.”

Pointing to a break in the thick brush and trees that started waist high, he replied, “Through there.”

Confused, she whispered, “But that opening is almost three feet off the ground. Dead-asses can’t fly.”

Shaking his head, the man replied, “I don’t mean she’s using it to get on the trail, I saw something through it. I caught it out of the corner of my eye since I was looking for something closer to the ground. There was a break in the mist, and I’m sure I saw a figure. It blended in with everything else, but it looked solid.”

“Sure you weren’t imagining it?” Jennifer asked. “If you look too hard for something, sometimes your mind plays tricks on you.”

“I’m sure I saw it,” the man replied. “It blended in, but one thing stood out. It has something splattered all over it. I’m pretty sure it was dried blood.”

The fog shifted in a slight breeze, revealing a small field beyond the line of trees bordering the trail. Looking for a way to get to it without having to break through the wall of scrub and altering their quarry, she could find nothing. Looking through the break again, she saw that the fog had closed back in.

There has to be some way to get from here to there, she thought to herself. Then it came to her. Waving for everyone to follow, she headed for the creek, stopping with her feet in the water as she crouched and looked down its length. The foliage had grown over it to make a four foot high tunnel, making it the perfect path for someone to move through.

Checking her M-16 to make sure a round was chambered, Jennifer thumbed off the safety and carefully moved forward. Her pulse pounding from the adrenalin coursing through her system, this left her focused and aware of everything around her. She could hear the thin trickle of water as it flowed slowly past her, and she could swear that she could even feel the heartbeats of the people behind her.

The light dimmed as she made her way further in, but she didn’t stop. Ahead, she could see a brighter area on the right and knew this was her destination. Although she was moving forward at barely the speed of a turtle, she slowed even more as she approached the opening. Twisting her body to the right as she took two final steps, she found herself looking through a break in the brush at a small clearing.