THE SAGA OF THE DEAD SILENCER Book 1: Bleeding Kansas: A Novel Of The Zombie Apocalypse (16 page)

“He should be okay for a quick run.”

“Quick is how we’re doing this,” Emory says, nodding at me. “We get in there, grab everything we can find and carry in two minutes, and
leave in three. These things mob up fast. We’re gonna be faster. Anyway, thanks, Clyde! I’ll stop by after lunch tomorrow with some liquid encouragement for ya.”

“You have a detail going to the liquor store?”

Emory’s grin widens. “After tonight, I don’t see any way around it!”

“All right,
Em. I’ll be looking for you, then.” Dr. Hearn turns and walks through the front of the house to show himself out.

I turn to Emory. “I appreciate the professional visit.”

“He would have seen you earlier but he had his hands full, as you can imagine. Not a young guy. We need to find some doctors in town, let ‘em know we have a safe place for ‘em to live and work. Speaking of safe, Clyde and I were talking about you coming up. We were impressed how you were assessing the security and finding it wanting.”

“This is why I don’t play poker.”

Emory laughs. “Well, just so you know, we’ve got people in the woods and on the other side of the golf course. If they see any of the former citizens looking too interested, they sneak up on ‘em and take ‘em out. We got people taking phone calls from the front. If it sounds like the former citizens are mobbing up we’ll shut it down and take them out as they come through the woods.”

“I stand corrected.
”

Emory slaps me hard on the back. “You’
re smart! There’s a future for smart people here, just so ya know!”

“Does th
at future include a frosty-cold pale ale?”

“Oh,
no! That’s the here and now! By the way, you hungry?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“How do you like your steak? We got some shrimp to go with that, too!”

“Medium
rare, and hell yeah on the shrimp.”

Evans wasn’t lying; these are frosted mugs fit for Norse gods.
Now this is how you do carrots, I think as I carve into my perfectly medium-rare steak, careful not to shove my mounds of fries and jumbo shrimp off of my plate. Emory Kerch even has lobster brought out, and sees to it I get a fat claw, “For what I saw this man do today right in the middle of the street. Three at once!”

I hoist my mug to the assembled. I realize I’m eating among other would-be monster slayers and they don’t appreciate the attention the alpha dog is showing me. These folks strike me as people who have been waiting for the world to go to shit for a long, long time. And why not? There weren’t many opportunities to shine when things were “normal.”

Kerch
apparently wasted no time finding people who would approach a hungry “former citizen” for the pleasures of cracking its skull, stabbing its eye, making a once functional human fall to the ground like a pile of dirty laundry. Given the looks I’m getting I wonder if I’m being set up.

O
r maybe we’re all being set up. A skinny Goth kid, with a line of rings on one nostril and the whitest skin I’ve ever seen on a white person glowers at me in a way I’m guessing is supposed to be menacing. There’s another barely-legal-to-drink boy in a gray wife-beater who looks over from time to time, but is otherwise pretending not to acknowledge my presence. A petite blonde girl with olive skin who stares at me when she thinks I’m not looking.

All at once the three get up and leave their places. “Dinner break’s up,” says the older man next to me.

“Oh.”

“So how you liking it so far?”

“The food’s good. The beer’s better than I hoped for. Course, it’s been a while.”

“You ready to be in charge of that crew?”

“What crew?”

A hand claps down on my shoulder. It’s Emory Kerch. “Come on, George, you know I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet!
”

“He’s been here nearly a week!” says George.

“Most of it unconscious. It’s been a busy week here. Anyway!” Kerch claps his hand on my shoulder. “You about done? Just wanted to take you away real quick.”

“Can I bring my beer?”

“Well, hell, yeah! I was thinking of taking our meeting at the bar!”

“
By God, then lead the way, good sir!”

“
Wooo!” crows Kerch. “You gonna be so much more fun to take meetings with than Evans! Let’s go!”

I walk with Kerch away from the table and force myself to dismiss the idea of all that steak, shrimp and lobster going to waste.
Too bad for all the people in their hiding places all over the world, struggling with that last can of beets no one wanted a week ago….

The bar is beyond the room leading to the balcony, built around the kitchen. A
smiling, buxom lady in a black tube dress steps forward to wait on us. “See, here’s the thing,” Kerch says as we settle into our seats. “I think you could clear out the town.”

“How many lived here before the Final Flu?”

“Maybe fifty-thousand. It’s a lot, I know. But if I could get enough people trained to fight like you, we could get it finished before the end of the summer. We could have a chance to live! The ones walking the freeway, we’d only take on for exercise. Just so long as we can clear the city, and make it safe for cattle in the country. We can build an old-fashioned city-state here.  You know that’s the future, right?”

“You know more about this that I do. I’m just looking for some clean underwear.”

“See, maybe you think that’s funny, but I call it practical! Practical thinking is the difference between just surviving and thriving. You like all this, right?”

“What’s not to like?”

“That’s just it. If we can keep the supply of meat and whatever coming until we get a grip on raising our own—without people trying to eat the steak right off the hoof!”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Just ride with Evans tomorrow. He normally wrangles our dead-people fighters, but I think you’re a far better example. You’ll get out there and do it with them! You know how these officer types are. Hell, they get flustered over a paper jam! You’re more the senior enlisted mentality. Were you in the military?”

“No, but I’ve spent a lot of time working with them.”

“Coulda fooled me. You move like a man with training!”

“Nope.
Just an older guy who knows he’s only got so many moves before he wears out.”

“Not into
a bunch of show-offy drama, like some of these kids we’re working with. They watch some movies, read some comic books, and they think they’re King Shit out there. You can’t tell ‘em anything!”

“Well, I expect ‘market forces’ to take care of them in short order.”

“Market forces! The way the wannabe badasses of business used to talk. Especially when they wanted to absolve themselves of responsibility for a bad decision.”

“Failing to acknowledge that they themselves were a ‘market force,’” I say, finishing the thought for him.

“That’s exactly what I used to tell these punks! I’d tell ‘em, You screw me over and the biggest goddamn market force you ever saw is comin’ down on you!”

I nod.
Point taken. “So, ride along with Evans. See what he does. Anything else?”

“Well, Clyde—that is, Dr. Hearn—was concerned you’d overdo it here.”

“Yeah, I should get my rest.”

“This is all shutting down before nightfall. Evans and the people out there already got their hands full taking out the curious. Hell, I
oughta shut it down, now! Anyway, Denise here is getting you a growler to go! Oughta help you get to sleep.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and don’t forget this!” Another attractive young blonde rocking a tight black dress and cleavage appears with a clam-shell carry-out box. She doesn’t smile, though. Her face is hard, all business. “I can tell you’re a man who hates waste,” says Kerch. “I had ‘em throw a couple more steaks in there for you. A man needs all the red meat he can eat!”

“You know it. I’ll drop a couple of more zombies for you just for that.”

“That’s the spirit. Rebecca here’ll drive you home.”

I slide down from the bar stool.
“Thanks, again, Emory.”

“
Nothin’ to it. You gonna be ready to roll by seven tomorrow?”

“That was my next question. And, yes.”

“All right! We’ll see ya then!”

I take my growler from the bar and follow Rebecca out through the house to the front entrance. She carries my take-home clamshell, her hand holding it up just so as if i
t were the Christmas goose. As if by magic a chauffeur’s cap appears in her free hand. She sets it atop her perfect hair as we step outside. This lady is so fluid and professional in her movement that walking behind her makes me stand that much straighter.

And there are eyes upon us as we descend the palatial stairs from the front entrance, towards the black SUV closest to the door. Yes, we’re stepping down towards the Big Man’s personal conveyance, but if there’s any envy in the glances, it’s easily missed. There’s
an urgency to these dozen or so couples flooding out to their vehicles parked around the fountain and along the lane.

Something’s going on and we’re being sent away. As close as Rebecca and I are to our vehicle the others have already started their cars and are driving as fast as they dare away up the dual-rutted road.
 Like frightened animals before the stampede.

16

Everyone else
is in an obvious hurry but Rebecca doesn’t waste a move. Rebecca unlocks the SUV with the remote and opens the rear door for me to climb in. She waits for me to straighten my legs and settle in with the growler jug before closing the door and walking around to the driver’s side.

She’s climbing in when a deep, nearly subsonic
THOOOM!
nearly blows the door back. Rebecca puts the take-out box on the passenger seat and closes the door. Our ears are spared the brunt of the now-pulsing bass, but we can still feel it in the soundproofed interior of Kerch’s Luxury Tank. Rebecca turns the ignition, pulls the shifter into gear. We swing around the vast fountain and up the long trail to the main road. I turn to look behind us. One other car is following us out. Indeed, all the cars parked around the fountain and in front of the house are now gone.

“Where did everyone else park?” I ask.

“There’s an underground lot on the south side of the estate,” Rebecca says. “You can’t see it from here.”

“
Sounds like the party’s just getting started for them.” I turn around in time to see Rebecca’s eyes flash steel-gray at me from the rear-view mirror.

“Mr. Kerch had them move the DJ booth and bar table further down the lawn. That way they could turn it up.”

“I could swear I saw the DJ leaving in front of us. He was in an awful hurry.”

“He’s grateful Mr. Kerch finds him useful,” Rebecca
says. “The kids are running their own party now.”

Kids?
Rebecca isn’t much older than the youngest back-lawn reveler I saw. I look to the rear-view, but her eyes—no laugh lines or crow’s feet about them, and steely as a Navy destroyer—remain straight ahead.

“He seemed more frightened than grateful.
”

Rebecca says nothing.
  We race up the slope to the main road. Rebecca takes the turn without stopping. Despite the state-of-the-art suspension we bounce hard coming up on the narrow macadam. She all but floors it once we’re straightened out.

“Holy shit! What’s going on?” I ask.

“I
f you don’t know then I’m not at liberty to say.”

“
Balls!”

“Evans
will brief you when he comes to pick you up.”

“
Great.”

Rebecca requires no direction to find my house. She brings us all the way to the front porch before parking. That she kills the engine seems strange. I almost wish Tanner
was here to explain the etiquette to me.  Maybe we’re not supposed to smell exhaust fumes. I sit and wait for Rebecca to open my door. I know to do that much.

I hadn’t realized she’d
already grabbed the take-out box from the front seat. Smooth. She opens the door and I ease out of the bossman’s Tank. I expect her to run ahead of me and hold the iron-grated outer door while I unlock the main. Instead I glance down to see her taking a suit-bag and an overnight bag from the back.

I don’t have long to wonder about this when the distant
 
thoom!
 is cut by a scream. Quick, faint—these people are maybe two miles away—but there’s no mistaking what it is.

Rebecca is up the porch steps with her luggage and my leftovers. “
We have to get inside. Now!”

I work the keys and push the door open. Rebecca
rushes around me into the house. She pauses long enough to stand by a window looking out on the driveway and point her remote. She winces as the horn honks in acknowledgement and I understand exactly what is going on. I lock up the front door while Rebecca draws the blinds on the windows facing the driveway.