Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (14 page)

Making a face, he bent his knees, kept his back vertical to
the floor, and inhaled. Then under her watchful gaze, he stood up quickly as
ordered and sent the metal door rattling noisily upwards in its tracks.

“Perfect,” exclaimed Brook, dumping the supplies into the
Raptor’s box bed. “Wouldn’t want to have to pull the weight of two gimps now
would we, girls?” She winked at Cade but kept her face straight for Wilson’s
benefit.

“They do good work, eh Max?” Cade said, giving the prostrate
shepherd a good scratching between his ears and earning in return a halfhearted
yawn for the efforts.

Chapter 21

By the time Duncan had swapped his thoroughly muddied and
drenched clothes for a set of well-worn BDUs in woodland camouflage probably
issued first during Reagan’s second term, the six aspirins and two bottled
waters he’d downed had somewhat numbed his low-grade hangover. After cinching
the trousers tight, he transferred the two-way radio, lock blade Kershaw, Zippo
lighter and keys to the Land Cruiser into various cargo pockets. Deciding
against the cowboy hat, he instead donned a woodland boonie that matched the
surplus uniform. And lastly, after pulling on his cowboy boots, the .45
semi-auto Colt went on his hip, riding high in its paddle holster.

Comfortable in the dry uniform, Duncan entered the security
container on his way topside. Sitting there on a pair of folding chairs was
Heidi and Chief. She was still manning the Ham radio and he was dividing his
time there between the still images on the security monitor and a thick
paperback by the late Mario Puzo. Curiosity getting the better of him, Duncan
stopped behind Chief and whispered, “She picking up anything?”

Shaking his head from side-to-side, Chief lowered his book
and mouthed, “Nothing.”

“If she raises anyone, I want you to take over. Interrogate
them
real
good ... get all the info you can while you have them on the
horn.”

Shifting in his chair, Chief replied, “I’ll glean what I
can. Going back to the quarry, huh?”

“Yep,” drawled Duncan. “Back to the scene of the crime. Just
hope all of the supplies Logan uncovered haven’t already fallen into someone
else’s hands.”

“What if those helicopters show up again?”

“Doubt they will. All of the empty ammo boxes they left
behind ... tells me they probably left with three or four hundred pounds worth.
Between that and the girls, they were probably out of room. And judging from
the wheel and skid marks I saw in the mud they were running pretty heavy.”

Chief crossed his arms. He said, “They left some weapons
behind?”

Nodding, Duncan said, “And food, clothing, Kevlar vests,
bedding. There’s a nice solar setup on the roof and a bunch of top-of-the-line
security cameras that puts these bastardized trail cams to shame.”

“We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“That we do, friend. That we do.”

“Me and Phil will hold down the fort,” said Chief. “You all
hurry back now. You hear?”

Duncan squeezed the stocky Native American on the shoulder.
He gently tapped Heidi’s head and mouthed, “Good job,” then continued on
topside.

***

Shielding his eyes against the emerging sun, Duncan broke
from the tree line and crossed the clearing, the damp grass wetting his boots.
The newly arrived Jackson Hole Chief of Police, Charlie Jenkins, was standing
alongside the dented and dinged Land Cruiser, chatting up Lev.

Calling ahead, Duncan said, “How are you this fine morning,
Chief Jenkins?”

“Charlie,” he answered. “My LE days are behind me.”

“Respect’s due to ya all the same.”

“Lev and Daymon are saying you’re going back up to the
quarry.”

Tugging the floppy brim on the boonie lower, Duncan said,
“Got some unfinished business to attend to up there. I reckon one of us will be
driving the black-and-white back for you.”

“Suit yourself,” said Charlie. “Like I said, my days of
protecting and serving are over. Look where it got us all anyway.”

“Jackson falling to Bishop wasn’t your fault, Charlie,”
hollered Daymon from the opposite side of the Land Cruiser. Then the passenger
door creaked, a resonant groaning of metal on metal, and the rig rocked on its
springs as he claimed the passenger seat.

Charlie shook his head and, muttering something
unintelligible, then leaned against the unoccupied 4Runner, hand resting on the
butt of his pistol.

“Let’s go,” urged Daymon, his muffled voice emanating from
inside the Cruiser, the door squealing as he hauled it shut.

“We can take the 4Runner, Daymon ... long as you promise not
to wreck it too,” said Duncan. He paused a second waiting to see if Daymon
would swap rigs or fire off a surly retort and, when neither happened, turned
to Lev and asked, “You coming?”

“Thought that was a given,” said Lev, removing his ball cap,
a yellow fabric article sporting a snake embroidered in brown with the words
‘Don’t Tread on Me’ stitched in red directly underneath. The image had been
popular on the Internet, Facebook mainly. And Duncan remembered seeing flags
with the same image at gun shows in Portland before the
event
that
rendered the government all but useless and the point of the message moot. “You
gonna leave that
traffic cone
here? Maybe don something a little more
the earthy side of the color spectrum?”

Lev said nothing. Then a beat later the yellow hat went
spiraling off into the woods and the former combat veteran was ruffling his
dark hair. Judging by his all-over tan and the fact he’d kept his hair closely
cropped and still somewhat high and tight these last half a dozen years, a
stranger would think he’d just returned from deployment in one sandbox or
another. He was lean, and stood a tad over six feet in boots. He fished a pair
of wraparound Gargoyles from a cargo pocket and hid his dark eyes behind the
polarized lenses. “Good to go,” he said. “Who’s driving?”

“I got it,” said Duncan. “I’ve seen the topography from the
air. Reckon I can find that bluff from the ground. Hop in.”

After placing his M4 in first, Lev took a seat behind
Duncan’s.

Handing his combat shotgun across to Daymon, Duncan slid
behind the wheel and fired up the Land Cruiser. Then the window pulsed down and
he called out to Jenkins. “We’re gonna need you to protect and serve for just a
couple of hours until we get back. You OK with that?”

Patting the Sig Sauer semi-automatic riding on his hip,
Jenkins replied, “Don’t worry ... I’ll punch the clock.”

***

As soon as Duncan brought the Land Cruiser to a complete
stop a car length from the vegetation-covered gate separating the feeder road
from State Route 39, the two-way radio in his pocket came alive and in his
reedy voice, Phillip stated, “You’ve got visitors.”

After a good deal of squirming and patting his pockets,
Duncan was able to locate the device. But in the meantime, Phillip—who was a
couple of dozen yards uphill hidden behind a neatly constructed blind that
afforded him a commanding view of the two-lane—kept repeating over and over,
“Can you hear me now?”

 “Copy that,” Duncan finally replied. He then added for a
little comic relief, “And I heard you the eight times prior to that as well.”
Then he got serious and asked Phillip for a situation report before opening the
gate.

“I’ve seen eighteen rotters since you left. Seven from down
Huntsville way. All pretty fresh ... maybe a day or two dead. But get this ...
all of them were kids. Three boys and four girls. I’m no expert but they all
looked less then twelve. The rest were first turns ... pretty messy group. They
were
heading towards Huntsville, then suddenly about-faced and followed
the kids east. My money says the kids were leftovers from the attack on
Huntsville and ...”

“I get the picture, Phil.”

“There’s more.”

“I’ll bet there is,” said Duncan.
There always is.
In
fact after
eighteen
he’d been trying to hold it together while Daymon
pretended to slash his wrists with large exaggerated horizontal cutting motions
across the bulged tendons and veins there. “We’ve got to get going. Is the
coast clear right now?”

But Phil persisted. “Wait ... you don’t understand. You
gotta hear this first.”

With the engine idling and burning precious fuel, Duncan
said rather sternly, “Sweet and to the point.”

“The one that we saw earlier. Kind of frozen in place down
the road.”

“Yeah,” said Duncan. “Is it still playing freeze tag?” He
arched an eyebrow at Daymon and then craned around and asked Lev to handle the
gate.

“No,” said Phil after a few seconds of dead air. “You’re not
going to believe this.”

Unable to stand another second of Phil beating around the
bush, Duncan hit the talk button and said, “What in God’s name is the rotter
doing that is so damn special?”

“Trying to
unlock
the gate.”

Used to taking most everything Phillip said with a grain of
salt, Duncan said nothing at first. Then after a few seconds of silence, with
everyone in the rig staring and the skeptic’s voice in his head crying
bullshit, he remembered that the dead had arisen and were walking the earth.
Therefore, he concluded, Phillip’s observation warranted further investigation.

Meanwhile, in the passenger seat, Daymon was tilting back an
imaginary bottle, feigning drunkenness.

“Phil ... have you been drinking?”

After finding the one assertive bone in his body, Phillip
said, “Quit busting my balls,
Duncan
. Get out of the rig and walk
fifteen feet and see for your damn self what
I
am looking at. Rotter
just started fiddling with it. And you went through last. Means it’s got to be
locked
... right?”

Ignoring the implied indictment, Duncan turned the volume
low and slipped the radio back in his pocket and the Toyota’s transmission into
Park. Then he and Daymon piled out with the passenger door making that
god-awful noise and joined Lev, who had a good head start and was now winding
his way through steaming puddles of leftover rainwater.

Duncan was closing on Lev when Phillip’s voice emanated
faintly from his thigh pocket. “I think it hears you. It just stopped what it
was doing ...” Then after a second’s pause, the play-by-play continued, “...
and now it looks like it’s on to you.”

Slowing his pace, Daymon looked at Duncan and mouthed,
“Fucking squeaky door.”

Lev, M4 at a low ready, rounded the camouflaged gate just in
time to see the rotter looking around, its head on a slow swivel. He ducked
back and poked his head ever so carefully around the gate and witnessed the
monster take the lock and chain up with both decaying hands. And as he watched
it seem to inspect each of the links individually, the thought came to him:
If
I’m not imagining this we are fucked, fucked
,
fucked
! With the
pessimistic mantra looping in his head, he wondered if maybe they should try
and trap this apparent genius-level rotter. Maybe study it. Look for any
weaknesses they might exploit. Then the sound of footsteps behind him, coupled
with the absurdity of keeping a flesh eater in captivity, quickly brought him
back to reality. That kind of shit was for the movies. And how’d that work out
for them?

Having just formed up next to Lev, and carrying a heavy load
of doubt towards what Phillip
believed
he saw, Duncan witnessed it with
his own eyes. “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” he exclaimed. To which the
rotter stopped fondling the lock, pivoted its head slowly to the left and fixed
a blank hungry stare on him. Instantly the ubiquitous dry rasping universal to
the first turned reached their ears. Devouring the newly arrived meat with its
soulless eyes, the seemingly semi-self-aware abomination lurched along the
gate, arms held horizontal. From the west a mellow breeze kicked up, rippling
the linen shirt draped on its body and delivering Duncan and Lev and Daymon
each a dry-heave-inducing lungful of carrion-polluted air.

The thing had been undead for quite a while, of that Duncan
was certain. Dirt was ground into the fabric of its shirt and once-plaid
Bermuda shorts. Showing the miles of wear and tear from pounding asphalt during
its never-ending search for prey, its feet, worn to the bone, produced a hollow
clicking noise with each step. And though the rotter was on the opposite side
of the fence, the fact that it was but an arm’s length away and it had just
been doing what could only be described as problem-solving—albeit on a
primitive level—jumpstarted a tingle of dread deep in the pit of Duncan’s empty
stomach. Then, standing the hair on his arms at attention, the volume of its
rasping increased and it hinged over the barbed wire and stalked sideways
toward him, dragging its abdomen along the sharp bits of metal and leaving
scraps of rancid flesh skewered on the rusty barbs.

Having just caught up with Duncan and Lev at the gate and
finding himself face-to-face with the male rotter, Daymon let out a low whistle
and said, “Ugly bastard, ain’t he?”

“It’s not the outside that’s got me concerned. Something
else is happening between that thing’s ears. And I don’t like it. Watched it
messing with the lock until Old Man caught up and it heard him.”

Shaking his head, dreads whipping the air, Daymon said,
“Bullshit. These things are nothing but brain-dead sacks of rotting organs.”

“Believe it. I saw it too,” proffered Duncan. “Wasn’t a
figment of my imagination.”

“Reminds me of that eighties movie where a bunch of Jarheads
try to tame the zombie.”

Lev smiled at the memory. “Bub was its name,” he stated.
“Prettier than this one though. Bub was more green than gray. And his neck
wasn’t chewed half-off, if I remember right.”